Directions et rôles de la sémiotique en Amérique du sud : Premières réflexions

• Main Author: Diana Luz Pessoa de Barros
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de liège 2012-12-01
• Series: Signata
• Subjects: discourse; institutions; teaching
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/signata/844

In this article we intend to show the roles of French Discursive Semiotics and the courses it took in French Discursive Semiotics, but mainly in Brazil, where it has had significant developments. We will mostly deal with Semiotics in Brazil, but we will try, whenever possible, to establish dialogues with the semiotic studies in South America, especially in Venezuela, Peru, Chile and Argentina, countries with which we have more contact. The article was organized in three parts: the first, with some very general considerations on the reception of the Semiotic Theory of Discourse in some countries from South America; the second, on the maintenance of the courses in theory and methodology and on the broadening of the effects and the objects of analysis in such Semiotics research centers; the third, on the role of the Semiotic Studies and on the dialogues that Semiotics keeps with other subjects in the above mentioned countries. We indicate, in such way, the dialogues with other language studies that mostly characterize Semiotics in South America, and the new objects it has taken, always trying to contribute with the knowledge of culture and society from each country. The semiotic studies developed in South America are characterized: by the graduation in Semiotics which has been given to students in different areas; by the institutionalization of Discursive Semiotics as a university subject; by the search for theoretical and methodological developments that can give some answers to the challenges of a multilingual and pluricultural society, that is, of a society of “mixes”, of a crossbred society; by the theoretical contribution that can be given to the International semiotics Community; by the undeniable contributions that Discursive Semiotics has brought, in South America, to language studies.