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TOWARD AN INTERPRETIVE ANALYTICS OF THE SIGN: INTERACTIONISM, POWER, AND SEMIOSIS (AND GEORGE W. BUSH)

Studies in Symbolic Interaction

ISBN: 978-0-76231-096-8, eISBN: 978-1-84950-261-0

Publication date: 7 July 2004

Abstract

Despite the attention that Charles Sanders Peirce and Herbert Blumer dedicated to semiosis, symbolic interactionism still clearly lacks a theory of the sign. Attempts to appropriate Saussurean semiology and deconstruction have been made, but these have often resulted in, respectively, denying the importance of interaction and interpretation, or in implying the demise of meaning. In this article I propose an interpretive analytics of the sign by building upon Peircean semiotics and social semiotics. I examine the sign as a tripartite process of relations among object, representamen, and interpretant and analyze processes of production, distribution, and consumption of signs, and how these processes are shaped by power dynamics. I discuss how socio-semiotic codes are constituted through specific ideological discursive practices, and how these discursive practices are contingent on exo-semiotic conditions. Finally, I reflect on the importance of this approach for the continued growth of symbolic interactionism.

Citation

Vannini, P. (2004), "TOWARD AN INTERPRETIVE ANALYTICS OF THE SIGN: INTERACTIONISM, POWER, AND SEMIOSIS (AND GEORGE W. BUSH)", Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 149-174. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(04)27012-0

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited