Research: Intentionality, semiosis, and meaning-making in cognitive semiotics
The aim of my research project is to investigate the relationship between the concepts of intentionality, meaning-making, and semiosis in the field of contemporary cognitive semiotics. A first, fundamental point of reference for understanding how cognitive semiotics allows for a critical review of more traditional and markedly culturalist hypotheses—according to which interactions between non-human animals are necessarily considered to be below the semiotic threshold and, consequently, effectively excluded from the scope of what semiotics can legitimately address – will be represented by the analysis of certain theoretical models, such as the Semiotic Hierarchy and the Motivation & Sedimentation Model. It will therefore be necessary to investigate whether, and with what theoretical consequences, the adoption of a semiotic-cognitive paradigm is capable of providing a truly fruitful interpretative framework for the dynamics involved in non-human animals, without thereby erasing or weakening the notion of representation, but rather reconsidering its status and modes of articulation. In line with cognitive semiotics' attempts to structure and facilitate a fruitful dialogue between the so-called ‘hard sciences’ and the humanities, this study will also examine the potential of theories that attribute a central—in some cases crucial—role to the body, sensory experience, and motor experience in the development of a less anthropocentric analysis of semiosis and, therefore, one that is more attentive to the continuity of meaning processes among animals.