2021-12-16
Göran Sonesson
Cognitive Semiotics Seminar
16 December 2021
16:00 - 17:30
https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/61502831303
In this Reading Seminar, we will read in advance and discuss Göran's manuscript on dance (and other bodily actions) that is attached bellow. Note: due to the latest rise of the pandemic, we will hold this reading seminar on zoom only, and we changed the time to 16:00-17:30, so that more people can attend!
In the sense of phenomenology, actions are special cases of acts of consciousness. Within semiotics, first Jan Mukařovsk. and then A.J. Greimas, have established, in different terms, a distinction between instrumental actions and actions which carry their meaning in themselves. But this is insufficient to account for the variety of actions which comprises everything from the creation of artefacts, dance, sporting events, theatre, rituals, and much else. Already those actions mentioned relate in different ways to instrumentality and intrinsic meaning, as well as to (depictive) iconicity and plasticity. In this paper, I will be particularly concerned with dancing, especially classical ballet, trying to delimit it from sporting events and theatre. Apart from the sign function and the spectacular function, I will notably have recourse to what I have elsewhere term secondary (depictive) iconicity as well as to plasticity. In the process, I hope to be able to throw some light also on the nature of sport, by comparing and contrasting it to dance, as well as to the theatre as well as, more incidentally, to some other types of action. In a wider perspective, my ambition is to contribute to a general inquiry into the semiosis of actions.
