We form in the imagination some sort of diagrammatic, that is, iconic, representation of the facts, as skeletonized as possible. The impression of the present writer is that with ordinary persons this is always a visual image, or mixed visual and muscular; but this is an opinion not founded on any systematic examination. Peirce: CP 2.778
Diagrammatic signs, electronic media and semiotics
Auke van Breemen, Van Breemen onderwijs advies
abreemen at semiosis.net
with assistance from:
Sjaak Paridaens, Teach and Text
Guido van Breda, Total Design
Introduction
The semiotician lives in blessed times. As a consequence of many technical inventions the universe of signs grew rapid during the last century, as well in absolute number as in kinds of signs. With the introduction of new kinds of signs the communicative practice changes not only in a quantitative sense.
For instance:
- Different semiotic modalities are more often used in combination than before. Among other things to realise realistic environments for scientific or educational purposes or fantasy worlds for entertainment.
- Well known sign-structures are subjected to debate by professional designers, who develop alternatives that make traditional demarcations between form and content problematic, like for instance concerning the annual report.(See Brandt 1999)
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Companies express themselves in different media, use multiple channels and address a highly varied public. This asks for co-ordinating activities by design-managers that are responsible for coherent communication.
- The individuals who create these changes or just experience them develop new habits in the domains of information tracking, communication and representation. Those habit changes do not make the traditional language education obsolete, but insufficient as a preparation for dealing with new practices.
More than ever a theory is needed which understands the combined use of different semiotic modalities. Preferably, the new communicative possibilities are used during the development of and the schooling in such a theory. This publication wants to contribute to that enterprise by giving a diagrammatic representation of the Peircean semiotics and hopes with that also to further realise the Peircean conviction that thought is not in us, but that we are in thought.(See Peirce: CP 8.256)