Biosemiotic Glossary Project - The Semiotic Threshold

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The Biosemiotic Glossary Project: The Semiotic Threshold

  • Published: 23 April 2017

Abstract

The present article is framed within the biosemiotic glossary project as a way to address common terminology within biosemiotic research. The glossary integrates the view of the members of the biosemiotic community through a standard survey and a literature review. The concept of ‘semiotic threshold’ was first introduced by Umberto Eco, defining it as a boundary between semiotic and non-semiotic areas. We review here the concept of ‘semiotic threshold’, first describing its denotation within semiotics via an examination on the history of the concept, its synonyms, antonyms, etymology, usage in other languages and context in which it is used. Then we present a general overview of the survey among researchers, analyzing the difference in responses for the concept of ‘lower semiotic threshold’ and related concepts. From the answers we also review the difference between the general usage of ‘semiotic threshold’ versus its specific use within biosemiotics, and attempt to make a general synthesis of the concept taking into account what we have learned from the survey and the literature review.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Atherton, James; Hadfield, Peter; Meyers, Renee 2008. Threshold concepts in the wild. Paper presented at Threshold Concepts: from Theory to Practice conference, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario [18–20 June].

  2. 2.

    Intersemiotic translation can be successfully incorporated to biosemiotic parlance as seen in Kull and Torop (2003).

  3. 3.

    A question that one could raise is whether ‘semiotic threshold’ and ‘threshold of semiotics’ count as different concepts. For all intents and purposes, we have assumed both to be the same and it seems to be the case that most scholarship using the concept does not make a difference between either of them, but it is conceivable that when talking of a ‘semiotic threshold’ we may think of a phenomenon related to sign action itself, whereas talking of the ‘threshold of semiotics’ may refer to an epistemological concept, deriving from the definitions first used by Eco, with the first being related to the so-called ‘natural’ boundaries and the latter, to the ‘epistemological’ boundary.

  4. 4.

    Uexküll talks about organisms’ specific thresholds of perception (2010 [1934]: 175).

  5. 5.

    Deely uses the concept of object to mean "anything cognized or known as such (anything apprehended in whatever way)" (2003: 8), uniting ‘object’ and ‘significate’ conceptually (2009: 15).

  6. 6.

    The main problems presented by the semiotic threshold can be summarized with the questions of where to locate it (or them) and how we can argue for the development of semiotic capabilities from simple to complex signs (O’Neill 2008: 145–146).

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Acknowledgements

We thank Donald Favareau for his very kind help and IUT2–44 for supporting this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Claudio Julio Rodríguez Higuera & Kalevi Kull

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Correspondence to Claudio Julio Rodríguez Higuera.

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Rodríguez Higuera, C.J., Kull, K. The Biosemiotic Glossary Project: The Semiotic Threshold. Biosemiotics 10, 109–126 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-017-9289-4

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  • Received03 January 2017

  • Accepted02 April 2017

  • Published23 April 2017

  • Issue DateApril 2017

  • DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-017-9289-4

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