Narrative modeling and its implications for cultural practices

1 Introduction

It can be said that Paul Cobley’s Narrative (2001) anticipates a new theory of narrative. This book begins with narrative concepts and ends with the environment where we live by narrative. In between there are historical and social aspects of how narrative has been developed. Eventually, Narrative (2001) became the second edition of Narrative (2014), in which a new theory of narrative emerged.

The new theory of narrative appears in Chapter 9, dealing with topics such as narrative identity, narrative cognition, and narrative modeling. These show quite a different approach, contrasting with both narratology as textual theory based on Saussure’s semiology and postclassical narratology within a constructive and cognitive framework. What is interesting to observe is that Chapter 9 provides us with a new theory of narrative within the framework of Peirce’s semiotic in connection with the biosemiotic perspective. Peirce’s triadic sign theory is necessarily connected with biosemiotics in terms of signhood. Sign, object, and interpretant work together to allow an agent to participate in semiotic process. While an organism responds to environment for meaning-making, that is, an activity of knowing object, verbal signs or nonverbal signs are operative in human or nonhuman life. A living sign, or a sign of life, thus involves a dynamic object to allow the agency to be passive or active according to the characteristics of Umwelt.

Connecting Peirce’s sign theory to biosemiotics, Cobley encourages us to ponder on the nature of humankind in comparison with nonhuman animals “in degrees and kinds” (Cobley 2016: Chap. 3). Regarding narrative in view, what is the meaning of narrative in humankind in terms of narrative identity? Further, what is the role of language in relation to narrative and cognition? How is narrative relevant to culture through narrative modeling, looking at semiotic animals that desire to express themselves by way of a story, its meaning being captured through the network of narrative (plot), leading into communities of interpretation or revaluation? These questions are included in the topics of my paper.

Based on these characteristics of the new theory of narrative by Paul Cobley, I shall elaborate this by looking at the cultural implication of narrative semiosis, so as to understand human development through cultural practices in various forms. There are four aspects of narrational activity in exploring the relation of narrative and culture. First, the emphatic statement by Cobley on the semiotics of narrative based on Peirce’s semiotic theory is operative as a theoretical background to discuss narrative semiosis. The significance of the narrative sign consists in the role of interpretant in the progression of narrative for transformation of culture into growth. Thus, narrative sign activity is considered to be human knowing of object as telos. Second, animals’ aesthetic behavior as explained by Cobley is connected with the idea of humans as semiotic animals, being engaged with the continuation of narrative in time and feeling. Thus, narrative meaning in givenness requires the prefiguration of the world in a form of story to tell. In this regard, I shall look at the relation of narrative and meaning which is associated with understanding other’s mind for cultural literacy by entering into a storyworld. Third, narrative identity is a critical topic in the thought of Cobley. His discussion of the psychological narrativity thesis versus proto-narrativity involves the issue of narrative and the self. Thus, the concept of the self as whether it is narrated or narrating entails the semiotic moral agent for story-hearing and storytelling. In the same vein, the concept of language is understood as either designative or constitutive (Taylor 2016: 333–338) to express narrative as qualia. In this respect, I shall discuss narrative text which is composed of verbal and nonverbal signs for culture-making. Fourth, narrative modeling for cultural activity is discussed, focusing on narration as transvaluation. Narrative as primary modeling is species-specific for humans, being found in proto-narrative through which nonverbal signs become salient, affecting the semiotic agent. Narrative in continuation with other modes of modeling by language and culture will be observed in terms of cultural activity of narration.

2 Narrative sign and the role of interpretant

In the discussion of narrative, Cobley takes the position that narrative is not limited to the matter of reference to the world but goes beyond that in re-presentation of the world (Cobley 2014b: 207). That is, narrative creates a new world, figuring time by way of causality through sequence of events. In this respect, narrative is characterized by constitutive features to record or store knowledge of object in a form of possible world.

In this regard, how is it possible for narrative to have any meaning? According to Peirce, meaning is discovered by a triadic relation of sign, object, and interpretant. Narrative as sign represents object, which is then translated by interpretant. The object in two kinds is operative in sign-action. Thus, immediate object within the sign and dynamic object outside of the sign produce the corresponding interpretants: immediate and dynamic. Then, interpretant as the sign-effect turns to meaning in two forms: the first meaning and the second meaning. The two kinds of meaning are interconnected in the way that two kinds of objects are interconnected by causality in diachronic embedment in human life. Thus, the dynamic object functions as a cause for immediate object to be presented in the sign, while interpretant mediates the object with a sign, producing sign-effect in the mind of interpreter immediately and dynamically.

This sign activity is understood in temporality, that is, object with past, sign with present, and interpretant with future. To put it differently, sign refers to specific object in the sign which allow collateral observation in the present, which is incorporated by collateral experience of the previous events in the past (Bergman 2009: 140). This collateral observation and experience allows interpretation of the objects, producing the first meaning followed by the second meaning for the future.

With emphasis on Peirce’s triadic sign theory in the discussion of narrative, the critical point is that the concept of sign lies in the feature being a general. Cobley posited that “such a concept of the sign [a general sign] will allow the observation that narratives refer to specific objects; that they allow, encourage and cannot preclude reference well beyond those objects; and that they serve the purpose of creating a new world” (Cobley 2014b: 205). As a result, narrative in different forms, media, and genre can be analyzed by way of the general theory of sign in Peirce’s semiotics. More importantly, a sign is characterized by the dialogic process, which allows the openness of a sign system through unlimited semiosis for growth and evolution.

The interpretant, being connected with symbol, which appeals to thoughts, allows narrative sign for continuation and transmission. Furthermore, narrative inquiry from Peirce’s semiotics involves capacity of representation in conduct of life by narrative modeling, through which one can understand culture as processes and habits. Eventually, Peirce’s concept of sign in applying to narrative turns to narrative semiosis in human Umwelt for meaning-making, which is a different approach from that of Saussurean semiology. In this regard, Cobley acknowledged that Ricoeur was misleading in conflating the semiotics of narrative with narratology:

For a semiotic theory, the only operative concept is that of the literary text. Hermeneutics, however, is concerned with reconstructing the entire arc of operations by which practical experience provides itself with works, authors, and readers […]. What is at stake, therefore, is the concrete process by which the textual configuration mediates between the prefiguration of the practical field and its refiguration through the reception of the work. (Ricoeur 1984: 53)

From Ricoeur’s view, a semiotic theory of narrative seems to operate in the textual level of structuralism in configuration. In Ricoeur’s discussion of threefold mimesis of narrative, configuration or emplotment appears in a mediational role between prefiguration and refiguration. However, with a lack of consideration of diachronic embedment of human life, the configuration alone with the synchronic feature seems to be tied to the idea of “the semiotics of narrative,” neglecting the ideas of the world and the reception of the text, which are related to the diachronic feature of narrative. For this reason, Cobley insisted that the concept of sign from Peirce’s semiotic theory should be focused on, emphasizing the role of interpretant in the triadic relation of sign, object, and interpretant as I mentioned above. I suggest that Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis (Ricoeur 1984: 52–70) is worth considering with reference to narrative semiosis. Three components of narrative, namely, the world, text, and the reader, are also operative in narrative semiosis for three separate entities of semiotic subject: sign, object, interpretant. Thus, Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis of prefiguration, configuration, and refiguration is in parallelism with Peirce’s concept of narrative sign in light of the triadic relation for narrative unity, which is included in the discussion of narrative modeling. I shall illustrate this in the following discussion.

A biosemiotic approach is a major contribution by Cobley to a new theory of narrative based on modeling systems theory (MST), which was developed by Thomas Sebeok and Marcel Danesi. My understanding of a biosemiotic approach involves seeing narrative as a living sign in a biological world in which the narrative as a model allows for capacity of modeling for human semiotic agent. Thus, narrative as primary modeling for the species-specific is operative in the capacity of differentiation in human Umwelt. This means that for human Umwelt, there is a capacity of representation of the world in singularized, composite, cohesive, and connective forms (Sebeok and Danesi 2000: 4–6).

Cobley’s discussion of narrative in a new perspective brought out a new dimension of narrative knowing, including the concept of time as infinity or continuity. The discussion of the ontology of narrative illuminates this point in proto-narrative, which is characterized by the continuation of narrative. For Cobley, the connection of nature with culture, nonhuman with human behaviors, and narrative with language in the idea of “prefigurement,” focusing on verbality, implies the concept of continuity from a diachronic view (Cobley 2014a: 196). In this regard, narrative as a form of thought functions to preserve community of memory as transmission in time. Cobley describes the diachronic view of narrative in this way:

Yet we also have a picture of memory both before the age of electronic memory and aesthetics, plus an illustration of the modes of memory after advent of verbality and the techniques of modelling associated with it. Human mapping, again, exemplifies the constant trafficking between verbal and averbal sign systems. (Cobley 2014a: 202)

From the above description, we find that a narrative sign as part of both nonverbal and verbal sign systems is engaged in the form of reminiscence by index and narration of the reminiscence for future. In this sense, narrative as sign systems can be described as the continuation from the prelinguistic to the extralinguistic. A biosemiotic approach to narrative by means of Peirce’s concept of sign will enhance cultural activity for habit-change through narrational activity within narrative modeling for a prototype which belongs to Peirce’s category of firstness as a possibility. Thus, with a scaffolding of narrative semiosis, narrative modeling will be examined by looking at narrational activity in the cultural landscape of place.

3 Narrative, meaning, and storyworld

What is meaning? To define meaning is not possible, because meaning has many layers. There are two domains in human Umwelt: one within which we are familiar and known and the other in which we are unfamiliar and unknown. From the biosemiotic perspective, the unknown domain is an object for knowing, thus, making forms based on the previous knowledge. The end result of the modeling turns to the forms of representation for referring to the world (Sebeok and Danesi 2000: 6). We gain access to the unknown object directly by way of sense perception but know it inferentially by way of semiosis through the semiotic human agency (see Wilson 2012: 186). Thus, the unknown domain becomes predictable by way of sign in conduct of life for the future on the maps of meaning. According to Peirce, we do not have introspection or intuition (Peirce EP1: item 2), so we observe facts from the external world and infer from them, creating a mental form. Following Deely (2005: 480–481), humans defined as semiotic animals have a capacity to make models to re-present and thus to represent the world. Re-presenting deals with the unknown object without reference, thus leading into the act of imagination; representing deals with the known object with reference for interpretation.

Traditionally in semiotics, meaning is equivalent to concept as a mental form, which is regarded as signified, that is the meaning of sign. And the signified has three layers of conceptual knowing of object in denotation, connotation, and annotation (Sebeok and Danesi 2000: 9). These layers of meaning from conceptual knowing are in continuity, leading to the narrative/mythic way of knowing object in context. Consequently, as a discursive form of meaning, a story is created in which the world is prefigured. In this sense, the story is understood as mythology for a narrative form.^[1]

The unknown domain of object is presented in iconic sign, sharing quality between them. In this sense, an iconic sign and an object appear to be one entity based on similarity, encompassing the meaning of an iconic sign. In human Umwelt, when an unexpected and surprising event happens in life, in the imagined moment a story as a form of meaning is created in order to solve the problem. This can be understood as reaction to stimuli in a survival environment. But Sebeok’s observation is that animals’ aesthetic behaviors^[2] have no use value; however, they paradoxically become behaviors of survival (Sebeok 1986: Chaps. 10 and 11). Cobley’s take on this paradoxical aspect of aesthetic behavior in human Umwelt provides us with an understanding of the nature of narrative as a species-specific primary modeling for differentiation of the world (Cobley 2014b: 241).

Regarding the semantics of narrative, narrative as qualia has abstract meaning of sense, which exists for embedment of meaning of object to be presented in narrative sign. In this sense, narrative does not have a practical value but an aesthetic value of goodness which makes the semiotic subject survive, paradoxically by solving problems while dealing with tension between opposites or ambivalence in human life. In this sense, narrative manifests in mythology in context for aesthetic meaning. Myth is fictional narrative which allows the agent to imagine the future in the present through aesthetic behaviors, while history is factual narrative, which is geared to interpreting the past in relation to the present. The narrative/mythic way of knowing and its meaning are, thus, derived from the epistemological and ontological aspects of “seeing as-if” and “being as-if,” engaged in a storyworld through narrative imagination. As a result, the unknown domain comes to be known by narrative modeling to understand the relation of the self and other, nature and culture, human and nonhuman, verbal and nonverbal signs, analogically.

When it comes to the relation of myth and meaning, the role of interpretant is critical in that interpretation should not be performed by the psychological subject but by the semiotic agent, which raises the issue of the ethical self for interpreting myth. The focus is the relation of narrative text to and its reception by the semiotic self, insomuch as meaning is given as a gift in narrative semiosis, thus being discovered in a triadic relation of the giver, a gift, and the receiver. Without understanding the concept of the self, a storyworld is not meaningful in the conduct of life. More importantly, the concept of the self emerges from experiencing a storyworld by “seeing as-if” and “being as-if” so as to know others and have compassion for them in life. In this way, narrative modeling through aesthetic behavior by experiencing a storyworld comes to be biological for narrative knowing of the unknown domain of other mind by virtue of narrative imagination.

4 Narrative and language: naming, narrating, culture-making

In the previous section, we observed narrative modeling through narrative as qualia in the mythic way of knowing the unknown domain. Knowing object through a story in a narrative form raises the ethical issue of interpretation in terms of criteria of truth of narrative meaning. This is associated with the psychological narrativity thesis (Cobley 2014b: 231). Cobley discussed this topic in the relation of narrative and identity. In the discussion, the center of attention is Strawson’s provocative argument of “against narrativity.” Strawson’s argument lies in the idea of people who are diachronic and people who are episodic. Strawson discussed the psychological narrativity thesis along with ethical narrativity (one’s life as narrative is a good thing), and he confronted both perspectives because some do live life as narrative (people who are diachronic, which is linked to the ethical thesis) while others do not (people who are episodic). Thus, Strawson stated that the first category of people see themselves as ethical, but he argued that, “One problem with it, and it is a deep problem, is that one is almost certain to get one’s ‘story’ wrong, in some more or less sentimental way”^[3] (2004: 437 n. 20, cited in Cobley 2014b: 230). Then Strawson continues by saying that narrative identity conflated with being ethical could lead to a vehicle of self-justification (Cobley 2014b: 231).

On the one hand, Cobley remarks that Strawson’s claim “that seeing all of a life as narrative is misguided is a persuasive one [claim]” (Cobley 2014b: 231); on the other hand, he counters Strawson’s views on narrative identity from the biosemiotic perspective: first, proto-narrativity is discussed in contrast with psychological narrativity. Second, the diachronic versus the episodic is an individual choice within narrativity. Third, narrativity is phenomenological. Fourth, the concept of person is rigid and fixed in postclassical and cognitive narratology, resulting in the psychological narrativity thesis. Supporting Cobley’s view on person, in contrast to a psychological view, person as consistency in Peirce’s terms is developed by narrative unity. In other words, narrative is a primordial form through which a concept of person is inferred in a similar way to how the concept of self is inferred by experiencing other through a testimony of ignorance and error (Peirce EP1: 20). Fifth, eventually, Cobley encourages us to see narrative beyond the psychological perspective. He states that:

Of course, human agency is central to narrative in so many ways; however, definitions of narrative have not generally been motivated to investigate where narrative might exist before the individual human ‘becomes’ a person or subject, as well as where the residues of narrative might have been found, phylogenetically, before or beyond the human development of storytelling. (Cobley 2014b: 232)

In this respect, narrative as qualia is considered to have a semiotic and cognitive orientation phylogenetically rather than psychological embedment. According to Cobley, David Herman also mentioned the concept of qualia for a narrative feature in response to what-it’s-like, suggesting “the full consciousness of a person” in a complete state (Cobley 2014b: 232). Being opposed to Herman, Cobley insisted that qualia are just components of what-it’s-like based on Peirce’s concept of qualia, from whom the term originated, which is to be understood as “hypothetic predicates” (Peirce 1982: 472), and fragmentary (Cobley 2014b: 232). Furthermore, according to Peirce “each personality is based upon a ‘bundle of habits’, as the saying is that a man is a bundle of habits. But a bundle of habits would not have the unity of self-consciousness. That unity must be given as a center for the habits” (Peirce CP 6.228). Peirce explains that “the unity of consciousness is therefore not physiological origin. It can only be metaphysical. So far as feelings have any continuity, it is the metaphysical nature of feeling to have a unity” (Peirce CP 6.229).

Cobley’s discussion on proto-narrative as in child–mother talk is related to the nature of continuation of narrative to have narrative unity from which personality is formed. I think that what Cobley has brought into the discussion of proto-narrative as ontology of narrative from a phylogenetical perspective is associated with primary modeling in human Umwelt from which species-specific modeling is operative for differentiation. It is understood as internal modeling. Therefore, in this stage, narrative as qualia affects the human agent through time in a form of rhythm and emotion (Cobley 2009: 860; Cobley 2014b: 168, 239–240; Peterson 2008: 64–71).

As I discussed in the previous section, humans from the biosemiotic perspective reside in tension between the known and the unknown, the visible and the invisible, implying the familiar domain and the unfamiliar domain. For the familiar domain, meaning is given in the triadic relation of sign–object–interpretant; for the unfamiliar domain, the human agent makes a story to prefigure a possible world through imagining in order to survive the uncertain and unexpected events in Umwelten. But this stage of narrative modeling functions as scaffolding for secondary modeling by means of language (grammar).

Narrative as in secondary modeling, which is operative by language, thus represents human action verbally contrasting with that as in primary modeling nonverbally. This means that the two kinds of narrative modeling are not separate but interrelated. They are connected in a reciprocal way: on the one hand, narrative as qualia becomes concrete by a logical sequence of events and actions by virtue of language in emplotment; on the other hand, language can express narrativity in a narrative form of rationality, insofar as language functions as constitutive components rather than designative power in such a case. Thus, narrative is then composed of nonverbal and verbal sign systems. In other words, configuration of proto-narrative in time and narrative in place is characterized as “human action encoded as narration” or “the verbalization of human action” (Liszka 1989: 117). Consequently, both language and narrative have the feature of comprising components for the whole conceptually and mythically along with designative power. This aspect is emphasized by Cobley, positing that the early humans used language for cognition long before they started to implement it through speech for verbal communication (Cobley 2016: 35). In this regard, the capacity of language in naming and narrating is geared to expressing narrative in context for creative and symbolic activity. Put differently, “feelings can be resolved by taking seriously the movements from Thirdness to Firstness inherently possible in semiosis” (Cobley 2009: 865; Sheriff 1989: 89).

Accordingly, language (symbol) as cognition combined with narrative (sign) is directed to knowing activity by narration of object whose direction moves from the unknown to the known. The nature of biosemiotics lies in knowing activity in a species-specific way. In this sense, secondary modeling by language is for humans only. This is not because of symbol as habit but because of the cognitive process of symbolization, that is, the capacity for generalization. As a result, the unknown domain becomes the known domain by means of knowing activity of narration by verbalization through which the unknown turns to be familiar, then being included in the maps of meaning of cultural life. In this way, nature and culture are interconnected in the course of verbal and nonverbal communication by means of naming and narrating, through which human agency is enabled for culture-making.

Culture as a symbolic form is characterized as ambivalence or antinomy for dynamism for growth and evolution. The dynamism could appear in a variety of phenomena in tension such as culture and anticulture, tradition and innovation, freedom and necessity, habit and creation, order and chaos, the impossible and the possible, and so on. This situation/environment requires the semiotic human agency to be connected with different entities. Humans are the semiotic animal (Deely 2005: 480–481). This means that humans have a capability for interpretation of culture by comparing the two opposite aspects in ambivalence, which is a ground for transvaluation by narration (Liszka 1989: 70–73). Transvaluation can be understood as refiguration in Ricoeur’s terms, which involves the reception of narrative text of ambivalence. Narration as transvaluation or revaluation is the topic of the next section, focusing on the semiotic agent as observer.

5 Narrative modeling and cultural activity: narration as transvaluation

Transvaluation in cultural community is regarded as an act of refiguration so as to connect one world with another world by narrational activity within the social and historical contexts, then leading to transformation of culture. Culture has ambivalent features: first, culture is considered to be habits of doing, feeling, and thinking as end result; second, culture is regarded as sign activity and the process of a habit-taking for a symbolic form. This feature is revealed in three layers of narrative modeling, complying with the idea of degeneracy^[4] of narrative modeling in individual and social contexts, thus developing a genuine narrative modeling for cultural transformation and spiritual evolution.^[5] I will explain three stages of narrative modeling operated by semiotic human agency as an observer through adaptation and exaptation processes in the experience of sign. Narrative experience mediates nature and culture in that biosemiotics is a science of knowing which is concerned with knowing object by means of sign activity, rather than a science of laws (Cobley 2010: 12).

Before the discussion of three modes of narrative modeling based on MST by Sebeok and Danesi, I will explain Cobley’s discussion of observership, which is related to human knowing in cybersemiotics as a branch of biosemiotics (Cobley 2016: xiv). As we know, three modes of modeling system are based on three categories of Peirce’s phenomenology: Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness in hierarchical dependency. In this regard, narrative modeling encompassing modeling systems which, in turn, encompass Peirce’s three categories, will be operative by a participant-observer by way of first-person experience (Cobley 2016: 16). Thus, observership can be described in terms of two aspects, the observer and the observed, which interlock with respect to the experience of narrative.

An observer in the process of observation of narrative sign is characterized in the way that narrative as qualia affects the observer by the time figured in a storyworld through rhythm, repetition, and a feeling of consistency. In that case, the observer becomes a part of the possible world by first-person experience. Deely (2009: 60–62) remarks that thing, object, and sign are distinguished in terms of ontology of relation. In particular, Deely pointed out Cobley’s Canon by which “thing” and “object” are distinguished in light of the knower, focusing on cognition; the latter needs the knower while the former does not. From this aspect, thing, object, and sign are interrelated by way of the knower in the knowing activity. The sign stands for object, so the semiotic subject experiences the sign as object in one of two ways, immediately or mediately. Thus, Cobley notes:

Likewise, signs seem to be just objects of experience—the light from a candle, the scent of a rose, the shining metal of a gun; but a sign also signifies beyond itself. In order for it to do so, a sign must be: not just a physical thing; not just an experienced object; but experienced as “doubly related” (Deely 1994: 22), standing for something else in some respect or capacity (or, for short: in a context). (Cobley 2010: 2060)

Therefore, a sign stands for something else in a context, which entails the semiotic subject as an observer in a context based on first-person experience as in the structure of “as-if” – “seeing as-if,” “being as-if” (Venema 2000: 104–105). This situation can be understood in that the relation of qualia and its context produces a consciousness of duality for comparison in the observer. This comparison allows for the subject “synchronic translation for transvaluation” (Liszka 1989: 117), which is related with observership of participant-observer based on first-person access to object. Accordingly, quale-consciousness (Peirce CP 6.236) of the observed is incorporated with dual consciousness of the observer as agency in sociohistorical contexts, producing a condition for transvaluation. In this sense, narrative as qualia in prefiguration of the world and its emplotment in sociohistorical contexts are interconnected for comparison, which demands interpretation of narrative in Peirce’s semiotics (Liszka 1989: 202). At this point, dual consciousness requires a third-person experience for an understanding of the configuration of narrative as qualia and narrative in a sociohistorical context from the epistemological perspective. This will allow the reader to refigure the narrative text by narration, leading into continuation of the narrative for transmission in cultural community.

Along with the discussion of participant-observer from first-person experience, my understanding of observership as explained by Cobley^[6] can be described as two different but interrelated experiences in the way that first-person access to narrative as qualia is extended to third-person knowledge of the narrative in context. Put differently, first-person experience allows one to research possibilities of sentiments by sensitivity to narrative sign itself, and third-person experience allows one to reconstruct the narrative text by rationality through scaffolding of first-person experience of narrative as qualia, rather than the predetermined habits of culture.

Now we turn to narrative modeling in three modes in relation to culture by narrational activity. Activity presupposes the concept of experience embedding the relation of subject and object. Specifically, narrative sign is associated with object and the human agent in narrative semiosis plays a role of subject/observer for the purpose of knowing object as telos. In this regard, experience precedes a sign. With respect to narrativity, it operates as object which determines a sign for knowing experience of the world, rather than an end result. Therefore, narrative modeling as knowing activity based on semiotic processes allows us to understand the world, others, and ourselves as well.

To sum up, narrative modeling is operative in three constitutive stages. First, in primary modeling system (sense-based form; iconicity), time is figured in a narrative form, affecting the semiotic subject with a sense of rhythm (e.g. Genesis, Chap. 1). This is understood as the proto-narrative stage, which is composed of fragmented stories or episodes and thus characterized by aesthetic behavior with no practical use value. But paradoxically this proto-narrative makes humanity continue to survive (Cobley 2010, 2014, 2016). A storyworld represents possibilities with which the semiotic subject prefigures the uncertain future events for solving problems by guessing what-it’s-like. A story through narrative imagination generates a feeling of intimacy with the world. This actual state of feeling accords with the storyworld by way of anthropomorphism in analogy, experiencing “seeing as-if” through empathy. In this stage, the concept of the self had not yet emerged, but it is manifested in givenness as the poetic self, thus, to be developed in semiotic process. The meaning of a story is also understood in givenness as qualia, which is an extra-textual feature; however, as a story is open-ended in human life, it is in continuity in time and feeling for cultural literacy of connectedness and relatedness through which self-awareness is aroused. In this regard, narrative as primary modeling can be called internal modeling.

Second, with secondary modeling system (indexical form; indexicality) by language, narrative modeling concerns the verbal representation of human action in sociohistorical contexts. Thus, language has a central role for narrative modeling, including logical construction of narrative text for configuration of narrative as qualia with narrative in sociohistorical context. Language as thirdness expresses the quality of narrative in firstness. In this way, language plays a constitutive role for making meaning with nonverbal narrative signs in a form of mythology. At this stage, the concept of the self has emerged and the semiotic self as an individual plays a role of storytelling agent in culture-making with dynamic narrative of verbal and nonverbal signs.

Third, narrative as tertiary modeling (symbol-based form; symbolicity) is considered as genuine narrative modeling for cultural activity for external modeling. Narrative communication in communities of interpretation requires the act of refiguration or transvaluation within the “as-if” structure, moving from “seeing as-if” to “being as-if” so as to connect art with life. At this stage, culture as habits will be refigured by a habit-taking based on configuration of the verbal signs with the nonverbal signs from a biosemiotic approach to narrative, thus looking at differences between humans and nonhumans in degrees and in kinds. Thus, narrative modeling demands observership in human Umwelt for semiotic agent of storytelling as moral and ethical self in order to communicate by narrative for cultural transformation. In this respect, humans reside in a participatory universe for purpose-driven narrational activity where nature and culture, human and nonhuman, co-evolve toward concrete reasonableness by a method of “sentimentalism”^[7] (Atkins 2016; Hookway 2002; Liszka 2021; Peirce 1992; Sheriff 1994).

6 Conclusion

I have explored a new narrative theory in Paul Cobley’s thought in terms of narrative modeling for cultural activity. The virtue of Cobley’s narrative from the biosemiotics perspective lies in the interconnection of nature and culture by means of narrative semiosis and modeling. The frame of reference in the discussion of narrative by Cobley is MST, which entails Peirce’s semiotics and his scientific metaphysics. Thus, based on Cobley’s thought on a new theory of narrative, which is associated with Peirce’s thought on continuity, narrative modeling in three modes is suggested: First, narrative as qualia reveals the concept of time figured in a storyworld, affecting the semiotic subject for cultural literacy; second, narrative in contexts constructs the experience of human action in place for culture-making; third, narration as transvaluation in cultural activity leads to the transformation of culture through which the spirit evolves. In this regard, Cobley’s thought on the cultural implications of biosemiotics seems to culminate in the idea of narrative modeling. Consequently, with the idea of continuity of nature and culture, narrative experience is operative by semiotic human agent for storymaking for survival and storytelling for transmission in the course of narrational activity of knowing object as telos in semiotic processes.