2026-04-16
The International Organization for Media, Creativity, and Development held on April 15, 2026, an open dialogue via WhatsApp, in which many academics and specialists from various fields participated and exchanged their views and experiences on cognitive semiotics, especially in the Arab world.
This session was moderated by the president of the organization, Dr. Madeleine Kassab, who emphasized in her speech the necessity for the academic sector in the Arab world to adopt cognitive semiotics, as it is capable of explaining the mechanism by which human sensory experience transforms into symbols and meanings, and it explains how humans build meaning through metaphor, embodiment, and memory. Particularly since cognitive semiotics has redefined the concept of the “sign” that classical semiotics had adopted for many years. It is no longer limited to “signifier, signified, and referent,” but has become a perceptual event that forms, grows, evolves, and changes at the moment of interaction, granting communication greater dynamism and flexibility.
The main points discussed in this dialogue:
1. The differences between classical semiotics and cognitive semiotics, the most important of which are: classical semiotics is the science of systems, while cognitive semiotics represents the science of flow. The former seeks rules, the latter seeks processes. The former gives the sign the authority of the text, the latter gives it the authority of the brain.
2. The importance of cognitive semiotics stems from its being the bridge that connects many sciences, including linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. Thus, it allows us to understand how meaning is produced in the mind and not only in the text. It views the sign as a living cognitive process linked to the brain and consciousness, and studies how a signal becomes an idea, the idea becomes knowledge, and knowledge becomes embodied behavior and action.
3. Cognitive semiotics can be applied practically in many fields, including media, education, psychotherapy, and discourse weaving, due to its ability to analyze the mechanism by which people actually interact with symbols and meanings in their daily lives, and the mechanism through which beliefs, mental images, and biases are formed (the study of the internal programming of the mind).
4. The necessity of adopting cognitive semiotics in studying the relationship between language and thought, especially in the Arab world saturated with political, religious, cultural, and media discourses, which leads to understanding the deep structure of Arab consciousness in its various manifestations.
5. The role of cognitive semiotics in reforming education in the Arab world, by moving it away from indoctrination, memorization, and repetition, toward critical thinking, meaning production, contextual understanding, and analysis of written, auditory, and visual discourse.
6. The importance of cognitive semiotics in the age and field of artificial intelligence, as it helps in designing systems that understand symbols in ways closer to the mechanisms of the human brain.
7. Until now, cognitive semiotics does not represent an independent field in most Arab universities, despite the clear Arab academic interest in this branch of knowledge. Research remains individual practices rather than institutionalized ones. Therefore, those responsible for the educational process must establish departments and faculties dedicated to this scientific field and allocate sufficient and appropriate funding to move Arab knowledge to deeper levels. Without cognitive semiotics, we cannot create a cognitive system through which the interconnection between traditional language, religious and political symbols, modern concepts, technical terminology, and rapid media discourse can be understood. Otherwise, we will face an inflation of signs and a contraction of understanding.
8. Through cognitive semiotics, the Arab academic field can re-engineer language, transforming it from a language that produces slogans into a language that produces concepts, a language that enables critical thinking and analysis rather than repetition. Cognitive semiotics is the solid bridge between heritage and scientific knowledge, and thanks to it we will preserve a heritage that provides roots and a science that provides horizons.
