Nonwestern semiotics and its possible impact on the composition of semiotics theory in the future

Abstract

We traditionally are used to a dichotomy between theoretical and applied levels in semiotic studies. Therefore, there exists a general-semiotics as the theoretical mode and a discipline-semiotics as the applied one. Clearly, the existing general semiotics arises from the West and all nonwestern semiotics seem to be reduced to the category of the applied- or discipline-semiotics. However, this scholarly dichotomy tends to be incomplete or unsatisfactory in the semiotic globalization era. This paper intends to point out that general or theoretical semiotics, far from being some original meta-semiotics or “semiotic philosophy,” is itself a synthetic body of a more general theoretical source outside of semiotic proper and found within various disciplinary scholarships. Thus, the composition of theoretical semiotics as such is also related to various conventional disciplines, including nonwestern ones. In this sense, a developed nonwestern or eastern semiotics would contribute also to the progress of semiotic theory in the future.