Rethinking Milton Singer’s semiotic anthropology: A reconnaissance

Abstract

AbstractThe article discusses the possibility of using the cognitive tools of semiotics (theory of signs) for theoretical considerations of social structures from the anthropological perspective. In the literature on the subject, this approach is defined as semiotic anthropology, a term coined by Milton Singer. The article emphasizes the possibilities, untapped within Singer’s work, of further epistemological research within the scope of the “cultural theory of signs” and reduction of the paradigms of research on culture from philosophical and philological as well as anthropological and ethnographic paradigms to a semiotic paradigm, enabling the analysis of meanings of cultural messages (as broadly understood), from architecture and painting and even eating habits (e.g., cooking) to systems of values and literature. In this sense, semiotic anthropology represents the position of “mild holism” and becomes a tool supporting the exploration of culture.