Perception already stylizes: On phenomenological semiotics

Abstract

A new term has appeared within semiotics over the last few decades: ‘phenomenological semiotics.’ However, it can appear to be unclear how to understand this new compound term. Phenomenology is a multifarious philosophical movement that no longer allows itself to be used as a descriptive adjective. In this article, I will attempt to qualify the term. My starting point is that both Edmund Husserl, and the Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden are relevant for a preparation of a cognitive semiotics that does not eliminate the formation of the sign's phenomenological dimension. To illustrate this, I will stress the semiotic perspective within cognitive linguistics with basis in the triadic concept of the sign within the phenomenological tradition, and remain critical of, among others, Ronald Langacker and John R. Taylor's support for Ferdinand de Saussure's dyadic concept of the sign. To conclude, I will sketch a phenomenological theory of sign's effect on a literary semiotics with Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway as an example.