Table Of ContentGerard Deledalle (Ed.) et al.
/4
SIGNS OF. HUMANlli;Y,
L'HOMME Eli SES
SIGNES
VOLUMEl
APPROACHES TO SEMIOTICS [AS]
Approaches to Semiotics
107
Editorial Committee
Thomas A. Sebeok
Roland Posner
Alain Rey •
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin New York
Signs of Humanity
L'homme et ses signes
Edited by/Edites par
Michel Balat and Janice Deledalle-Rhodes
General Editor: Gerard Deledalle
Volume I
Proceedings of the IVth International Congress
Actes du IVe Congres Mondial
International Association for Semiotic Studies
Association Internationale de Semiotique
Barcelona/Perpignan, March 30- April 6, 1989
Reading Commiuec/Comitc de lecture
(Nominated by the Executive Board of the IASS/Nomme par le Bureau Directeur
de l'AIS):
Manfred Bicrwisch, Berlin; Massimo Bonfantini, Naples; Oagfin Follcsdal, Copenhagen;
Beatriz Garza <."uaron, Mexico; Francis Jac:ques, Paris; Berti! Malmberg. Lund;
Solomon Marcus, Bucarcst; Hermann Parn:t, Bruss,cls & Antwerp; Jcrzy Pelc. Warsaw;
Jose Manuel Pcrczu-Tomero, Barcelona; Roland Posner, Berlin; Fran~is Pastier, Paris;
Maria Lucia Santaella Braga, S.lo Paulo; David Savan, Toronto; Patriz.ia Violi, Bologna
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin New York 1992
Mouton de G111ytcr (formerly Mouton, The llague)
is a Division of Waller de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.
@ Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of
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Ubrary of Congrtss Ca1aloging•in•Publica1ion Data
International Association for Semiotic Studies. Congrus (4th : 1989 : Barcelona,
Spain, and Perpignan, Fraooe)
Signs of humanity : prooecdin~ of the !Vth International Congress, Inter•
national Association for Semiotic Studies. Dan:clona/Perpignan, 1989-30·3/
06-04 -= L'hommc et scs signes : actes du I Ve Congrcs mondial, Association
internationalc de scmiotique / edited by Michel Balat et Janice Dclcdallc-Rhodes;
general editor, G~rard Deledallc.
v. cm. - (Approaches to semiotics : 107)
English, French, and Spanish: the French and Spanish papers, except the
invited lectures. have an abstract in English.
Includes bibliographical referenoes.
ISBN 3-11--011675•8
I. Semiotics-Congresses. I. Dalal, Michel. II. Dclcdallc--Rhodes, Janice. Ill.
Delcdallc, Gerard. IV. litlc. V. lillc: L'hommc et ses signcs. VI. Series.
P99.157 1989
302.2-dc20 92-31588
CIP
D~ DtutscM Bibliothtk - Cataloging-in-Pul>lication Data
Sips of humanity : Darcelona/Pcrpignan, March 3-April 6, 1989 z L'hommc et
ses signcs / cd by Michel Dalat et Janice Deledalle-Rhodes. General ed.: Gerard
Dclcdallc. Reading Commiucc: Manfred Oierwisch ... - Berlin : New York :
Mouton de Gruyter
(Approaches to semiotics ; 107) (Proceedings of the ... congress of the Inter•
national Association for Semiotic Studies ; 4)
ISBN 3·11-011675•8
NE: Dclcdallc, Gerard (Hrsg.J; Bicrwisch, Manfred; PT; I. GT; International Aw>•
cialion for Semiotic Studies: Procccding,s of the ...
Vol. I (1992)
© Copyright 1992 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D•l000 Berlin 30
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Presentation
Semiotics Comes of Age
Gerard Deleda/le
Secrelary General of the International Association for Semiotic Studies
President of the Fourth Congress
I am not going to discuss the abduction that semiotics as such was born with
man. As far as we have testimonies, semiotics has always been another name
for philosophy. When. not long ago, human sciences were distinguished
from philosophy • a fact that I deplore • semiotics had to find a place among
them. That is why, twenty years ago, during a meeting which took place in
Paris in 1969, on January 21st and 22nd, and which gathered together
Roman Jakobson, A.-J. Greimas, Emile Benveniste and Claude Uvi
Strauss, the International Association for Semiotic Studies was founded, and
is still, because its creation took place in Paris, a French Association
according to the law of 1901. The idea of the Association was in fact
conceived three years before in Warsaw by Jakobson, Greimas and Meyer
Shapiro, and a Semiotic Association - not yet international - was set up. Its
first President was Stefan Zolkiewski whose recent death (on January 4th,
1991) we are deeply sorry to have to record, and its first Secretary-General
A.-J. Greimas. Jerzy Pelc became soon afterwards President. Staning with
this first Association in 1966, a Semiotic Bulletin was published by Social
Science Information. Its title was "Studies in Semiotics" and its first directors
were successively and conjointly A.-J. Greimas and Thomas A. Sebeok.
After 1969, the "Studies" became, under the direction of Thomas A. Sebeok,
the official journal of the I ntemational Association for Semiotic Studies:
Semiotica. The first President of the International Association was Emile
Benveniste and its first Secretary-General A.-J. Greimas. When Greimas
decided to resign, Julia Kristeva was appointed in his place. When the first
Congress took place, Benveniste became Honorary President, Cesare Segre
was elected as President, Umberto Eco as Secretary-General and Julia
Kristeva as Ellecutive Secretary.
The first Congress of the Association took place in Milan in 1974, the
second one in Vienna in 1979. In Milan the foundation-stone was laid; in
Vienna, as the title of the Proceedings shows: Semiotics Unfolding. a
tradition was growing. With the third Congress which took place in 1984 in
Palermo (thanks to the Sicilian Semiological Circle and its director Antonino
Buttitta who, three years before the scheduled date, acted as organizers in
place of Canada where the Congress was due 10 take place) semiotics was
wondering about its future. With the fourth Congress, semiotics comes of
age. Faithful to the tradition and in continuity with it. The same Association
vi Ddc:dallc:. Gawd
organized the Congress. A.-J. Greimas, who was one of the Founding
Fathers of the Association, was elected Honorary President of the IVth
Congress at the end of the previous Congress at Palenno and the Congress
took place in France at Perpignan in 1989 as scheduled. Now. one year later,
the Proceedings are ready to be published.
1989 being the year of the Millennium of Catalonia. Perpignan, capital of
Northern Catalonia, was only too pleased to associate Barcelona, capital of
Southern Catalonia, with the IVth Congress. That is why the Congress took
place in Barcelona and Perpignan.
1989 was also the year of the Bicentenary of the French Revolution. The
Congress celebrated this in its way. The Congress tried 10 show that
semiotics is an open discipline. By its topic: Humanity and its signs. By
inviting Semioticians from Eastern Europe, as many as was possible. thanks
to the efficiency of Jerzy Pelc, our President, and the financial assistance of
the French Minis1.ry of Foreign Affairs and of our own Institute. And by
devoting sessions to Human Rights topics such as emancipation and to all
sorts of problems - epistemological, cultural and technical - of human
communication.
1989 was also the year of several more properly semiotic events: the
Fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Charles Morris' Foundations of the
Theory of Signs; the 110th anniversary of the publication of "How to Make
Our Ideas Clear" wriuen in French by Peirce himself in 1877 and published in
La Revue philosophique in 1879; and the 150th anniversary of Peirce's
birthday. We celebrated all of them and the papers written on these occasions
are among the major contributions to semiotics of the present Proceedings. Of
course, Peirce and Morris are not the only semioticians discussed in the three
volumes of the Proceedings and not necessarily always the most innuential
for all of us.
The papers have been thematically distributed into three volumes. An
abstract in English precedes the French and Spanish papers. The
Presentation, the General Conclusion and the invited lectures have no
abstract, except Francis Jacques' which is in French.
Volume I: Theoretical Semiotics, opens with Francis Jacques' lecture on
the constraint of communicability. The first session, devoted to general
semiotics, is followed by sessions pertaining to the traditional disciplines
which have taken semiotics into account: philosophy, epistemology,
linguistics, literature.
Volume II: Semiotics in Action, starts with Umberto Eco's lecture on
"Forgeries, Originals, and Identity•. Umberto Eco is like Francis Jacques a
philosopher, and also, as everybody knows, a successful novelist and a
semiotician who has managed to reconcile American and European semiotics.
The practice of semiotics varies with its subject-mailers: texts, images, space,
body and mind, the body and its signs, scenic performance.
Volume Ill: Semiotics in the World, is centered around the "human voice"
to which Joseph Margolis, who is a philosopher like Francis Jacques and
Umberto Eco, materialized in his lecture. Volume Ill has two parts: one
Semiolics Comes cl Age vii
historical, the other one cultural. The semiotic anniversaries of Peirce and
Morris are celebrated in the first part, followed by papers on European
semiotics and on comparative semiOlics. I should like to insist here on the fact
that it would be a great mistake to think of semiotics as European or
American. The great semioticians arc not cmprisoned in the limits of the
countries where they were born. Peirce and Morris have followers in Europe
and Latin America and A.-J. Oreimas has followers in Canada, the United
States, Asia and Latin America as well as in Europe. The second part deals
with the place of culture in the interpretation of signs • because it makes a
difference, in spite of what I have just said, that a semiotician belongs to a
tradition, his own tradition, European, American or Asian. As we organized a
session on Asian semiotics, we were fortunate enough to have Chinese,
Japanese and Korean semiOlicians in Perpignan. The origin and development
of their respective semiotics are different and cannot be discussed at length
here, but their papers arc among the major contributions of the Congress and
the Proceedings. Because cultures induce specific interpretants, because the
new means of communication in the world of today have introduced new
types of signs and because the very meaning of "culture• has changed at the
very moment when the scale of values which culture promoted in the name of
the Human Rights, was ruined by the same Human Rights, new problems
appeared which semiotics has to solve and with which it deals here.
I should like, in conclusion, to thank all those who helped in the
publication of the Proceedings of the IVth Congress: first the contributors
who sent their papers in time and were kind enough to modiry their papers,
when necessary, to give to the Procttdings a coherence and a unity which we
would not have been able by ourselves to give them without their
collaboration; the maftrts d'oeuvre o( this edition, of course: Michel Balat and
Janice Deledalle-Rhodes who, for more than a year, devoted their time and
life to the meticulous preparation of the three thick volumes of the
Proceedings of the Congress; to the names of Michel Balat and Janice
Deledalle-Rhodes, who were responsible respectively for the French and the
English manuscripts, I shall add the name of Daniel Meyran, who was
responsible for the Spanish texts; M. Jacques Blanc, President of the Region
Languedoc-Roussillon and Pr. Henri Got, President of the University of
Perpignan, who helped us in the preparation of the Proceedings as generously
as they did in the preparation of the Congress.
Presentation
La semiotique a vingt ans
Gerard Dekdalle
Secr~taire ~IM!ral de l'As:sociation lntemationale de S~miotique
President du Quatri~me Congres
Certes, la renexion semiotique a 1'4ge d'homme. Pendant des si~cles, on la
a
confondit, juste titre, avec la philosophic. A l'~re des sp6cialisations, elle
dut se faire une place parmi les sciences humaines. Ainsi ~uit, ii y a vingt
a a
ans, au cours d'une r~union qui se tint Paris lcs 21 et 22 Janvier 1969,
!'instigation de Roman Jakobson, A.-J. Greimas, Emile Benveniste et Claude
Uvi-Strauss, !'Association lntemationale de ~miotique qui, de cc fait, est
une Association de Droit Public Fran~ais, selon la loi de 1901. L'idoo en avail
a
~Ii con~ue trois ans auparavant Varsovie par Jakobson, Greimas et Meyer
Shapiro et une association de semiotique - non encore intemationale - avail
pris fonne. Son premier President fut Stefan Z61kiewski dont nous d~plorons
la disparition le 4 janvier 1991, et son premier Secretaire General A.-J.
a
Greimas. Jerzy Pelc succeda bientOt Stefan Z61kiewski. D~ 1966,
!'Association s'etait dotoo d'un bulletin de liaison intitul~ •studies in
Semiotics" qui parut pendant deux ans dans Social Scie1,ce lnfonnation, sous
la direction successive et conjointe de A.-J. Greimas et Thomas A. Sebeok.
Apr~ 1969, les "Studies in Semiotics• devinrent, sous la direction de
Thomas Sebeok, la revue Semiotica qui est l'organe officiel de !'Association
lnternationale de Semiotique. Le premier President de !'Association
lntemationale fut Benveniste et son premier Secr~taire G~~ral A.-J. Greimas
auquel succeda, quand ce demier demissionna, Julia Kristcva. Lors du
a
premier Congr~ de !'Association, Cesare Segre rempla~a la presidence
Emile Benveniste et Umberto Eco au Secretariat General Julia Kristeva qui
devint Secretaire Ex~utive.
a a
Le premier Congres de !'Association eut lieu Milan en 1974, le second
Vienne en 1979. Le premier fut fondateur, le second, comme l'indique le titre
de ses Actes: Semiotics Unfolding, en retra~l la croissance. Avec le
a
troisi~me Congr~ qui se tint en 1984 Palerme (que le Cercle S~miologique
Sicilien et son directeur Antonio Buuiua avaient bien voulu accepter
d'organiser quand le Canada y ren~ trois ans avant la date pr~vue), la
semiotique se posa alors des questions sur son avenir. A vec le quatri~me
Congr~. la semiotique est devenue majeure. Dans la continuite. II s'agit
a
toujours de la ml!me Association. A.-J. Greimas qui presida sa naissance fut
a
~lu par le Comite Ex~utif de !'Association, !'issue du Congr~ de Palerme,
President d'Honneur du quatri~me Congr~ de 1989 dont !'organisation fut
x Dclcdalle. Gawel
confi6e A l'lnslitut de Recherche en Sc!miotique, Communication et Education
de l'Universii.! de Perpignan et dent nous presentons ici les Actcs.
1989, etant l'ann6e anniversaire du millenaire de la Catalogne, Perpignan,
capitale de la Catalogne du Nord, accepta d'associer Barcclonc, la capitale de
la Catalogne du Sud, au quatri~mc congr~. C'est ainsi que le Congr~ cut
lieu A Barcelone et Perpignan.
1989 ~tait aussi l'ann~e du Bicentenaire de la R~volution Fran~sc. Le
Congr~ s'en souvint A sa mani~re. II rut un congr~ d'ouverture sur le
monde: par son th~me: l'homme et ses signes; par l'accueil qu'il r~rva aux
grace
st!mioticiens des Pays de !'Europe de l'Est. A la diligence de Jerzy Pelc,
l'actuel President de !'Association, A la gc!nc!rosite du Minist~re Fran~s des
Affaires Etran~res et aux fends de notre lnstitut de Rechcrche; et par les
sessions consacr~es aux st!miotiques non-occidentalcs, au probll:mc de
l'~mancipation et aux probl~mes de la communication aujourd'hui:
~pist~mologiques, culturels, techniques.
1989 marquait des anniversaires plus proprement semiotiques que nous
comes i\ coeur de cc!l~brer: le Cinquantenaire de la publication des
Foundations of tire Theory of Signs de Charles Morris; le Cent-Dixi~me
anniversaire de la publication en fran~s dans la Revue Philosophique des
articles pragmatistes de Peirce; le Cent-Cinquanlil:me anniversaire de la
naissance de Charles S. Peirce, le fonda1eur de la ~miotiquc modeme.
Le lectcur des Actes pourra se rendre compte que ccs cc!lc!bralions n'~taient
pas de pure fonne: Peirce et Morris sont des ref~rences obligc!cs pour un
grand nombre d'entre nous et pas seulement pour les historiens et
commentatcurs de la pens6e de ces deux st!mioliciens.
Les communications ont ~te reparties th~matiquement en trois volumes.
Chaque communication ~rite en fran~ais ou espagnol est preced6e d'un
r~sumc! en anglais, quelle que soit la langue utilis6e - langues officielles:
anglais ou fran~is, ou langue du pays d'accueil: espagnol, hormis lcs
conf~renccs plc!nil:rcs en langue anglaise, la pr~entation qui a dcux versions.
anglaise et f ran~se. et la conclusion gt!nc!rale.
Le Volume I: Sc!miotique thoorique, s'ouvre sur la confc!rcnce de Francis
Jacques sur la contrainte de communicabilite. La premi~re session, consacn!c
A la semiotique generate, est suivie de sessions relevant des disciplines
traditionnclles pour lesquelles l'apport de la s~miotique a c!t~ d~tenninant:
philosophic, c!pist~mologie, lin~rature.
Le Volume II: La Sc!miotique en action, dc!bute par la confc!rence
d'Umberto Eco, philosophc comme Francis Jacques, romancier comme
chacun sait et sc!mioticicn gc!nial qui a reussi A ooncilicr ou n!concilicr les
s~miotiqucs euro~enne et am~ricainc, sur "Les faux, lcs originaux et
l'identii.!". La pratique de la ~miotiquc varie avcc scs objcts qui ~pent le
champ de l'action en textes, images, espacc, le corps et !'esprit et le corps et
ses signcs, arts du spectacle.
Le Volume 111: La Sc!miotiquc dans le monde, donne la parole d'abord Al a
•voix humaine" par la bouche lors du Cong~. par la plume dans les Acles, A
Joseph Margolis. philosophe comme Francis Jacques et Umberto Eco. Le
La smtloliquc a viogt ans ,u
volume Ill comprend deux parties: unc partie historique et une partie
culturelle. C'est dans la premi~re partie que sont ctltbres les anniversaires de
Peirce et de Morris et que sont rassembltcs les ttudes de stmiotique
europ6eMe et les ttudcs de sc!miotiquc comparee. II importc de dire ici que le
lieu de naissance des grands stmioticiens ne dtlimite pas des aires
d'innuence. Et !'on oonstatera que Peirce et Morris sont aussi prc!scnts en
Europe et en Asie que Greimas l'cst en Amc!rique du Nord anglophone aussi
bien que francophone et en Amtrique latine. La deuxi~me partie traite de la
place des cultures dans l'interprc!tation des signes - parce qu'il n'est pas
indiffc!rent, malgrc! ce que nous venons de dire, qu'une ~miotique soil de
tradition europc!enne, amc!ricaine ou asiatiquc. Nous avons eu la chance de
pouvoir rtunir a Perpignan des ~mioticiens chinois ct japonais: leur appon
est ccrtaincmcnt unc des contributions majeures du IVe Congres. II y avail
a
aussi plusieurs sc!mioticiens corc!ens Perpignan. II cOt c!U! in«!ressant de
publier non seulcmcnt les communications, mais les interventions des
participants aux sessions, car !'intervention d'un des participants corc!cns
concernant les rapports de la sc!miotique corc!cnnc avec la France, par
l'intcrmc!diaire de Uvi-Strauss, dans les ann~ 60, 6clairait quelque pcu
l'histoirc de la sc!miotique dans le monde. Paree que les cultures sont
porteuses d'interprc!tants spc!cifiques, parce que les nouveaux moyens de
communication du mondc modeme ont introduit de nouveaux types de signes
et parcc que le sens meme de •culture• a change! en meme temps qu'au nom
des droits de l'hommc se brisait l'tchelle des valeurs que ces mcmes droits
a
prOnaient, la sc!miotique se trouvc aujourd'hui oonfrontc!e de nouveaux
probl~mes qui sont examioos ici.
Je voudrais, pour terminer, rcmercier tous ceux qui ont permis l'c!dition de
ces Actes: les participants d'abord qui ont bicn voulu envoyer leur
communication et procc!der aux modifications que nous avons parfo is dQ leur
a
demander d'y effectuer pour donner !'ensemble unc unite! de prc!sentation
a
que, sans leur coopc!ration, nous aurions cu beaucoup plus de mat obtenir;
les maftres d'oeuvre de cette ~ition surtout: Michel Balat et Janice Deledalle
Rhodes dont je nc pourrai jamais assez loucr le soin mtticulcux et le
dc!vouemcnt avec lequel ils ont ttabli les c!preuves de ccs Actes, ce dont tous
a
les participants pourraient divers degrc!s tc!moigner; aux noms de Michel
Balat et de Janice Oeledalle-Rhodes qui c!taient en outre responsables
respcctivcment des textes fran~is et anglais, j'ajoutcrai celui de Daniel
Meyran, responsable des textes espagnols; Monsieur Jacques Blanc, cnfin,
Prc!sident du Conseil de la Region Langucdoc-Roussillon et Monsieur le
Professeur Henri Got, Prc!si<lent de l'Universitc! de Perpignan, pour l'aide
financi~re que ces deux institutions nous ont apportc!e pour l'~ition des
Actes, sans oompter l'aide financi~re qu'ils nous avaient dc!ja accordc!e pour la
tenue du Congr~.
