Ethnosemiotics

Ethnosemiotics is a disciplinary perspective which links semiotics concepts to ethnographic methods.

Overview

Algirdas Julien Greimas and Joseph Courtés defined for the first time ethnosemiotics in Semiotics and language: an analytical dictionary.

"Ethno-semiotics is not truly an autonomous semiotics. If it were, it would be in competition with a field of knowledge already established under the name of ethnology or anthropology, whose contribution to the advent of semiotics itself is considerable. Rather, it is a privileged area of curiosities and of methodological exercises ... . Given that general semiotics authorizes the treatment of non-linguistic (gestual, somatic, etc.) syntagmatic concatenations as discourses or texts, the field of ethno-linguistics can be enlarged to become an ethno-semiotics; analyses, still rare, of rituals and ceremonies lead us to suppose that ethnology can become, once again, the privileged locus for the construction of general models of signifying behavior."^[1]

During the 2000s, in Italy, the interest toward the discipline has been renewed thanks to the studies and the researches of Maurizio del Ninno, Tarcisio Lancioni, and Francesco Marsciani. Under the direction of Francesco Marsciani, in Bologna in 2007 the Ethnosemiotic Centre of the Bologna University (CUBE) was founded, active in different fields of inquiry. In 2015, CUBE's experience led to the series Quaderni di Etnosemiotica and the Ethnosemiotics lab.

Focus and fields of inquiry

The ethnosemiologist analyses the systems of signifiers which are individuated in specific cultural contexts through the observation and the application of the ethnographic methods. At the present, the principal researchers which have been realized are focused on urban spaces, therapy, rituals, folklore, everyday practices. In Italy we can distinguish two approaches to ethnosemiotics:

the Urbin school, founded by Maurizio del Ninno, which follows the theoretical framework of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Georges Dumézil, close to French Social Anthropology.
the Bologna-Siena school, founded by Tarcisio Lancioni and Francesco Marsciani, which were concerned by the development of a set of concepts and methods to apply semiotic analysis to different aspects of everyday life.

From 2015 the Ethnosemiotics Lab leads researches both in the theoretical and the methodological field. Developed inside CUBE, active at the Bologna University, it conducts multidisciplinary researches. The synergy between ethnographic observation and the analysis of the manifested values offers active results from the point of view of the capacity to describe social phenomena.

References

^ Algirdas Julien Greimas, Joseph Courtés Semiotics and language: an analytical dictionary Indiana University Press, 1982 - 409 pages.

Bibliography

(IT) Accardo Lorenza, Donatiello Paola, Liborio Elena, Palestrini Maddalena, Via Mascarella. Declinazioni di uno spazio denso, Bologna, Esculapio, 2015.
(FR) De Certeau Michel, L'invention du quotidien. I Arts de faire, Éditions Gallimard, 1990; eng. tr., The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall, University of California Press, Berkeley 1984.
Del Ninno Maurizio, (a cura di), Etnosemiotica. Questioni di metodo, Meltemi, Roma, 2007.
(FR-ENG) Greimas Algirdas Julien e Courtés Joseph, Sémiotique. Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, Parigi, Hachette, 1979. eng. tr., Semiotics and language: an analytical dictionary Indiana University Press, 1982.
(IT) Marsciani Francesco, Lancioni Tarcisio, La pratica come testo: per una etnosemiotica del mondo quotidiano; in Marrone, Gianfranco, Dusi, Nicola, Lo Feudo, Giorgio, (a cura di), Narrazione ed esperienza: intorno a una semiotica della vita quotidiana, 2007.
(PT) Marsciani Francesco, Introdução à etnossemiótica, Centro de pesquisas Sociossemióticas, São Paulo, 2012.
Marsciani Francesco, Tracciati di etnosemiotica, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2007.
(FR) Marsciani Francesco, À propos de quelques questions inactuelles en théorie de la signification in Actes Sémiotiques, nº 117, 2014.
Mazzarino Giuseppe, Il potere dell'ipnosi. Proposte teoriche per un'etnosemiotica, Esculapio, Bologna, 2015
(ENG) Sbriccoli Tommaso, Jacoviello Stefano, (a cura di), 2012, Shifting borders. European perspectives on creolisation, Cambridge Scholar Publishing, Newcastle.

External links

(IT) CUBE - Ethnosemiotic Centre of the Bologna University
(IT) Ethnosemiotics Lab Archived 2019-01-29 at the Wayback Machine
(IT) Etnosemiotica.it - Maurizio del Ninno's webpage

[1] Algirdas Julien Greimas, Joseph Courtés Semiotics and language: an analytical dictionary Indiana University Press, 1982 - 409 pages.

[1]

v t e Ethnicity
Concepts	Clan Ethnic group Ethnographic group Ethnolinguistic group Ethnonational group Ethnoreligious group Ethnographic realism Diaspora Immigration Hyphenated ethnicity Indigenous peoples In-group and out-groups Meta-ethnicity Metroethnicity Minority group Influence Monoethnicity Nation Nationality Panethnicity Polyethnicity Population Race Supraethnicity Symbolic ethnicity Tribe
Ethnology	Anthropology Ethnic studies Ethnoarchaeology Ethnobiology Ethnobotany Ethnoecology Ethnomycology Ethnozoology Ethnocinema Ethnogeology Ethnography Autoethnography Clinical Critical Institutional Netnography Online Person-centered Salvage Transidioethnography Video Ethnohistory Ethnolinguistics Ethnology Ethnomathematics Ethnostatistics Ethnomedicine Ethnomethodology Ethnomuseology Ethnomusicology Ethnophilosophy Ethnopoetics Ethnopsychopharmacology Ethnoscience Ethnosemiotics Ethnotaxonomy
Groups by region	World Contemporary ethnic groups Countries by ethnic groups Africa Americas Indigenous Canada Greenland Mexico United States Caribbean Central America South America Asia Central Asia East Asia Northern Asia South Asia Southeast Asia West Asia Australia Aboriginal groups Torres Strait Islanders Europe Oceania Indigenous European
Identity and ethnogenesis	Cross-race effect Cultural assimilation Cultural identity Demonym Development Endonym Ethnarch Ethnic flag Ethnic option Ethnic origin Ethnic religion Ethnicity in censuses Ethnofiction Ethnonym Folk religion Historical Imagined community Kinship Legendary progenitor Linguistic homeland Mores Mythomoteur Nation-building Nation state National language National myth Origin myth Pantribal sodality Statistext Tribal name Tribalism Detribalization Neotribalism White ethnic
Multiethnic society	Consociationalism Cultural appropriation Diaspora politics Dominant minority Ethnic democracy Ethnic enclave Ethnic interest group Ethnic majority Ethnic media Ethnic nationalism Ethnic pornography Ethnic theme park Ethnoburb Ethnocracy Ethnographic film Ethnographic village Ethnopluralism Indigenous rights Middleman minority Minority rights Model minority Model minority myth Multinational state
Ideology and ethnic conflict	Allophilia Ethnic bioweapon Ethnic cleansing Ethnic hatred Ethnic joke Ethnic party Ethnic penalty Ethnic slurs Ethnic stereotype Ethnic violence Ethnic riots Ethnocentrism Ethnocide Ethnofuturism Ethnosymbolism Indigenism Indigenization Nativism Separatist movements Xenocentrism Xenophilia Xenophobia
Related	Minzu (anthropology)

Overview

Focus and fields of inquiry

See also

References

Bibliography

External links