Semioticians narrating a field

Abstract

The paper discusses the results of a larger study carried out with 40 semiotics scholars in 12 countries (Germany, France, United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Estonia, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, the United States and Mexico) in 3 languages (French, English and Spanish) conducted in the framework of the ERC DISCONEX project. In this research, we focused on the under-researched area of semiotics scholars’ identity construction, and examined it by focusing on their narratives, produced in a particular setting. We addressed this topic by using research interviews and a linguistic analysis of unfolding interactions. The analysis, rather than using a semiotics-oriented approach, is at the junction point between discourse analysis and semiotics since it is informed by a toolkit that consists of different strands of narrative positioning theory (Bamberg, 1997; Wortham, 2000; Søreide, 2006; De Fina, 2013; and Deppermann, 2015). The findings reveal that respondents do not adhere to a single identity, but rather represent themselves by choosing from among an inventory of identity affordances that either intersect or contradict with one another according to the moment of the interaction. In addition, we also account for the existence of a prevailing macro-discursive context that intends to convey the scholars’ own subjective experiences of working in a marginalised field. This study, therefore, helps in our understanding of how a group of semioticians interact and negotiate their academic identities and how they struggle to achieve recognition for their field, despite the institutional constraints of their domestic academic systems.