The Epistemological Status of Semiotics and Taxonomic Making

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL STATUS OF SEMIOTICS AND TAXONOMIC MAKING

Eds. Orlando Paris e Massimo Vedovelli

 

The taxonomic procedure consists in applying a series of distinctive categories to an object of study in order to highlight the constituent elements of the analyzed object and thus construct a definition of it. In Semiotics, but more generally in the sciences of language, classification is presented as a taxonomic procedure foundational to the scientific procedure itself: a precondition for the elaboration of a scientific metalanguage and therefore indispensable for the development of the linguistic disciplines themselves. The objective of this monographic issue is to examine the role of taxonomies in the development of philosophical-linguistic thought, developing some thematic nuclei:

 

  • Taxonomic doing as scientific doing;
  • Sign taxonomies in the history of semiotic thought: from Santagostino's distinction between natural and artificial signs, through Peircian taxonomy up to Umberto Eco and Tullio De Mauro's theories of codes;
  • the dispute over taxonomies: Chomsky and the restrictive view of taxonomic making;
  • the taxonomies of artistic languages: cinematographic language, musical language, the pictorial language and photographic language;
  • the forms of taxonomic making: from taxonomies that emphasize elements to those that emphasize relationships; from taxonomies on the paradigmatic axis to those on the syntagmatic axis (distributional linguistics);
  • taxonomic devices: the pertinence principle, the arbitrariness, the iconicity;
  • taxonomic forms and artificial intelligence.

 

Deadline for paper submission: February 28st, 2024 (paris@unistrasi.it)

Languages admitted: English, Italian

Length of the paper: up to 40.000 characters (selected bibliography included)

All submitted papers must include a short abstract in English and five keywords also in English

Please prepare your submission for double-blind peer-review.