Abstract
This paper proposes a new approach for analysing daily activities in a laboratory. The case study presented is an analysis of shop-talk around a microscope. In addition to the classical approaches, such as ethnomethodology and anthropology of science, I argue that a microsemiotic approach could be useful to better understand what is at stake. The semiotic approach I shall use here was proposed by a group of Belgian semioticians: Groupe μ. This semiotic approach leads to a constructivist point of view: the meaning of a visual representation is progressively constructed and is very context-dependent. This semiotic approach is fruitful because it allows a very precise analysis of shop-talk recorded data, and gives a better account of the materiality of visual representations.
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Notes
Groupe μ is composed of Belgian XXth century semioticians. In the 1970s and 1980s they worked on developing a theoretical approach towards visual rhetoric and visual semiotics that involved classifying images according to their differences from plastic and iconic norms. The Traité du signe visuel (1992) searched for a general grammar of the image, independently of the type of corpus being considered.
Without explaining in detail the reasons for my choice, let us nevertheless evoke one: the Peircean semiotic develops a triadic definition of the sign while Saussure proposes a dyadic definition. The Saussurian definition, which served as a base for French semiology, places great emphasis on the articulate language to the detriment of other semiotic forms. Besides, Saussure tends to neglect the ‘referent’ in favour of language which he holds as a system of signs. In this system, the value of every sign is a result of its place in a network of links established with other signs. Then, in my eyes, the Peircean semiotic, which takes into account the ‘referent’ in his definition of the sign, is more relevant to understanding the links between meaning and reality.
This short extract was translated into English by a researcher at GSI.
By “interinstrumentality”, I mean: being able to use instruments designed according to different physical principles, bringing as a result a type of physical information specific to each instrument. This information can be chemical, topographic, electronic, etc. This is one of the main strategies used in this kind of laboratory to make the meaning of an image more robust. See [2] and [3].
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Allamel-Raffin, C. The Meaning of a Scientific Image: Case Study in Nanoscience a Semiotic Approach. Nanoethics 5, 165–173 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0123-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0123-1