Phenomenology as Experiential Translation: Towards a Semiotic Typology of Descriptive and Expressive Ways of Making Sense of Experience

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper critically assesses and argues for the value of first- and second-person phenomenological approaches to researching aesthetic experiences. Against the background of a review of academic debates on the topic of slow cinema, this paper demonstrates the need for more rigorous and grounded research on film experiences. It therefore advocates the implementation of the empirically-informed, second-person research method of micro-phenomenology in the field of film reception studies. It argues for a renewed understanding of phenomenology as experiential translation grounded in a Peircean semiotic framework. From this semiotic angle, it proposes a typology of specific orders, levels, stages, and modes of experiential translation involved in various approaches to phenomenological research. This semiotic perspective also raises awareness of various non-verbal forms of expression, in addition to traditional linguistic forms of description, employed by participants in micro-phenomenological interviews when they intersubjectively transform their film experiences into reflective awareness guided by and through interaction with the interviewer-researcher. This paper promotes expressive phenomenology that includes non-linguistic, gestural, pictorial forms of reporting lived experience as legitimate material as well as non-traditional format of publication of research that meets academic standards of validity and verifiability.