Home The semiotics of sensation: A. J. Greimas and the experience of meaning
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The semiotics of sensation: A. J. Greimas and the experience of meaning

  • Ronald Schleifer EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 21, 2016
Semiotica
From the journal Semiotica Volume 2017 Issue 214

Abstract

It has been the life-long ambition of A. J. Greimas to analyze the nature of meaning, and in his work he has consistently described meaning as a felt experience, what he calls the “feeling of understanding.” This essay examines the Greimassian investigation of meaning as experiential – which is to say sensational – as well as cognitive by analyzing, by means of Greimas’s “semiotic square,” P. M. S. Hacker’s recent exploration of the relationship between sensation and cognition undertaken in terms of the semantics of ordinary-language philosophy. That is, the essay subjects what it calls “the illusion of immediacy” in ordinary-language philosophy to the systematic analysis of the “semantic formalism” of the semiotic square in order to demonstrate that the seeming “given” of ordinary language theory – the “logico-grammatical terrain and . . . the conceptual landscape” that Hackers describes – can be profitably analyzed in terms of the interaction of semiotic constraints. It concludes by touching on the ways Greimassian semiotics is congruent with – and perhaps supported by – recent neurological understandings of sensate experience.

Résumé

Pendant toute sa vie, A. J. Greimas a eu l’ambition d’analyser la nature du sens, sens qu’il a toujours décrit comme expérience sentie, ce qu’il appelait « effet de sens ». Pour examiner le sens comme relevant de l’expérience – c’est-à-dire de la sensation – aussi bien que de la cognition, cet essai s’appuie sur le carré sémiotique greimassien pour analyser les recherches récentes que P. M. S. Hacker a menées sur la relation entre la sensation et la cognition dans la perspective de la sémantique de la philosophie du langage ordinaire. L’essai soumet à l’analyse du « formalisme sémantique » du carré sémiotique ce que nous désignons « l’illusion de l’immédiateté » chez les philosophes du langage ordinaire. Nous démontrerons ainsi que ce qui apparaît aux yeux de la théorie du langage ordinaire comme étant des « données » – ce que Hacker décrit comme « le terrain logico-grammatical et […] le paysage conceptuel » – peut s’analyser de manière fructueuse comme une interaction de contraintes sémiotiques. Pour conclure, nous examinerons en quoi la sémiotique de Greimas s’accorde avec – et est peut-être confortée par – les résultats des recherches neurologiques récentes sur l’expérience sensible.

Keywords: A. J. Greimas; semiotic square; ordinary language philosophy; P. M. S. Hacker; neurological schemas; meaning analysis
Motsclés : A. J. Greimas; carré sémiotique; philosophie du langage ordinaire; P. M. S. Hacker; schémas neurologiques; analyse de la signification

References

Benveniste, Emile. 1971. Problems in general linguistics, Mary Elizabeth Meek (trans.). Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press.Search in Google Scholar

Casti, John. 1995. Complexification: Explaining a paradoxical world through the science of surprise. New York: HarperPerennial.Search in Google Scholar

Derrida, Jacques. 1988. Limited Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Derrida, Jacques. 1989. Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human sciences, trans. Richard Macksey. In Robert Con Davis & Ronald Schleifer (eds.), Contemporary literary criticism, 2nd edn., 230–248. New York: Longman.Search in Google Scholar

Descartes, René, 1927. Meditations on first philosophy, Elizabeth Haldane & G. R. T. Ross (trans.). In Selections Ralph Eaton (ed.), 88–166. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Search in Google Scholar

Donald, Merlin. 2001. A mind so rare: The evolution of human consciousness. New York: Norton.Search in Google Scholar

Emery, Nathan & David Amaral. 2000. The role of the amygdala in primate social cognition. In Richard Lane & Lynn Nadel (eds.), Cognitive neuroscience of emotion, 156–191. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Fodor, Jerry. 1983. The modularity of mind: An essay on faculty psychology. Cambridge: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/4737.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Glucklich, Ariel. 2001. Sacred pain: Hurting the body for the sake of the soul. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. J. 1962. La Linguistique statistique et la linguistique structural. Le Français Modern 30. 241–252; 31 (1963): 55–68.Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. J. 1970. La linguistique structurale et la poétique. In A. J. Greimas (ed.), Du sens, 271–283. Paris: Seuil.Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. J. 1983. Structural semantics, Danielle McDowell, Ronald Schleifer & Alan Velie (trans.). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. J. 1990. The meaning of meaning. In A. J. Greimas (ed.), Paul Perron & Frank Collins (trans.), The social sciences: A semiotic view, 3–9. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. J. 2010. How to define the indefinite: An essay in semantic description, Albert Samuel Whisman & Ronald Schleifer (trans.). Genre 43. 307–326.10.1215/00166928-43-3-4-307Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. J. & J. Courtés. 1982. Semiotics and language: An analytical dictionary, Larry Crist & Daneil Patte (trans.). Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press.Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. J. & François Rastier. 1987. The interaction of semiotic constraints. In A. J. Greimas (ed.), On meaning: Selected writings in semiotic theory, 48–62. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar

Gureckis, Todd & Robert Goldstone. 2011. Schema. In Patrick Colm Hogan (ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences, 725–726. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hacker, P. M. S. 2013. The intellectual powers: A study of human nature. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.10.1002/9781118609033Search in Google Scholar

Hardcastle, Valerie Gray. 1999. The myth of pain. Cambridge: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/4832.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Hjelmslev, Louis. 1961. Prolegomena to a theory of language, Francis Whitfield (trans.). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Search in Google Scholar

Holenstein, Elmar. 1976. Roman Jakobson’s approach to language, Catherine Schelbert & Tarcisius Schelbert (trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Jameson, Frederic. 1972. The prison-house of language. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9780691214313Search in Google Scholar

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1975. The raw and the cooked, John & Doreen Weightman (trans.). New York: Harper.Search in Google Scholar

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1984. Structure and form: Reflections on a work by Vladimir Propp, Monique Layton & Anatoly Liberman (trans.). In Vladimir Propp (ed.), Theory and history of folklore, Leiberman (ed.), 167–189. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar

Mithen, Steven. 2006. The singing Neanderthals: The origins of music, language, mind and body. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1931–1966. The collected papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols., C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss & A. W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1992. Deduction, induction, and hypothesis. In Nathan Houser & Christian J. W. Kloesel (ed.), The essential Peirce, 186–199. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.10.2307/j.ctvpwhg1z.17Search in Google Scholar

Ricoeur, Paul. 1984. Time and narrative, vol. 1, Kathleen McLaughlin & David Pellauer (trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226713519.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Rumelhart, David, P. Smolensky, J. L. McClelland & G. E. Hinton. 1986. Schemata and sequential thought processes in DPD models. In J. McClelland & D. P. Rumelhart (eds.), Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the mocrostructure of cognition, Vol 2: Psychological and biological models. Cambridge: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Sacks, Oliver. 2007. Musicophilia: Tales of music and the brain. New York: Knopf.Search in Google Scholar

Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1983. Course in general linguistics, Roy Harris (trans.). La Salle, IL: Open Court Press.Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald. 1987. A. J. Greimas and the nature of meaning: Linguistics, semiotics, and discourse theory. London: Croom Helm.Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald. 2000a. Analogical thinking: Post-enlightenment understanding in language, collaboration, and interpretation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.10.3998/mpub.16853Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald. 2000b. Modernism and time: The logic of abundance in literature, science, and culture 1880–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511485299Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald. 2009a. Intangible materialism: The body, scientific knowledge, and the power of language. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald. 2009b. The semiotics of speculation. Genre 43. 165–186.10.1215/00166928-42-1-2-165Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald. 2011. Modernism and popular music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511793295Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald. 2014. Pain and suffering. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203757345Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald, Robert Con Davis & Nancy Mergler. 1992. Culture and cognition: The boundaries of literary and scientific inquiry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.10.7591/9781501738524Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald & Jerry Vannatta. 2013. The chief concern of medicine: Integrating the medical humanities and narrative knowledge into medical practices. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.10.3998/mpub.3157169Search in Google Scholar

Schleifer, Ronald & Albert Samuel Whisman. 2010. Greimas’s semantics: Introduction to ‘how to define the indefinite’. Genre 43. 289–305.10.1215/00166928-43-3-4-289Search in Google Scholar

Searle, John. 1969. Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139173438Search in Google Scholar

Steen, Francis. 2005. The paradox of narrative thinking. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology 3. 87–105.10.1556/JCEP.3.2005.1.6Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-12-21
Published in Print: 2017-1-1

©2017 by De Gruyter Mouton

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  3. Foreword
  4. Introduction
  5. Section 1: Life, career, context / Contexte, vie et carrière
  6. Chronology of A. J. Greimas
  7. Inédit 1 (1964): Réflexions sur les possibilités d’une description de l’histoire de la linguistique
  8. Inédit 2 (1984): Les universaux de la narrativité 
  9. Inédit 3 (1986): Le sens et la musique. Propos recueillis par Marcello Castellana (1986)
  10. Inédits 4 (1966–1990): De la sémiologie à la sémiotique. Choix de lettres d’A. J. Greimas
  11. Greimas et la linguistique, la poétique et la sémiotique au quotidien, d’après sa correspondance inédite avec Michel Arrivé
  12. La sémiotique de Greimas : un projet scientifique de long terme
  13. Politiques de la sémiotique: Flux et reflux de la critique idéologique chez A. J. Greimas
  14. A. J. Greimas: un Professeur à l’université turque
  15. Les recherches de Greimas sur la mythologie lithuanienne
  16. La « sémantique de corpus », le programme inachevé de Sémantique structurale
  17. The semiotics of sensation: A. J. Greimas and the experience of meaning
  18. Interview with François Rastier
  19. Section 2: Post-Greimassian semiotic analyses / Analyses sémiotiques post-greimassiennes
  20. Language and the game of chess
  21. Human action in narrative grammars
  22. Décrire la vision du monde: L’enjeu anthropologique de la Sémantique structurale
  23. Actualité de la rhétorique : métaphore et image
  24. De l’imperfection : un dialogue avec l’univers mystique
  25. Greimas embodied: How kinesthetic opposition grounds the semiotic square
  26. Le sens de l’échange
  27. The Semiotics of Nirvāṇa: Salvation in Buddhism
  28. La Succession
  29. Les études de société selon la perspective de la sémiotique greimassienne
  30. La factitivité, postérité d’un concept
  31. Selected works by A. J. Greimas
https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2016-0182
Keywords for this article
A. J. Greimas; semiotic square; ordinary language philosophy; P. M. S. Hacker; neurological schemas; meaning analysis

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  3. Foreword
  4. Introduction
  5. Section 1: Life, career, context / Contexte, vie et carrière
  6. Chronology of A. J. Greimas
  7. Inédit 1 (1964): Réflexions sur les possibilités d’une description de l’histoire de la linguistique
  8. Inédit 2 (1984): Les universaux de la narrativité 
  9. Inédit 3 (1986): Le sens et la musique. Propos recueillis par Marcello Castellana (1986)
  10. Inédits 4 (1966–1990): De la sémiologie à la sémiotique. Choix de lettres d’A. J. Greimas
  11. Greimas et la linguistique, la poétique et la sémiotique au quotidien, d’après sa correspondance inédite avec Michel Arrivé
  12. La sémiotique de Greimas : un projet scientifique de long terme
  13. Politiques de la sémiotique: Flux et reflux de la critique idéologique chez A. J. Greimas
  14. A. J. Greimas: un Professeur à l’université turque
  15. Les recherches de Greimas sur la mythologie lithuanienne
  16. La « sémantique de corpus », le programme inachevé de Sémantique structurale
  17. The semiotics of sensation: A. J. Greimas and the experience of meaning
  18. Interview with François Rastier
  19. Section 2: Post-Greimassian semiotic analyses / Analyses sémiotiques post-greimassiennes
  20. Language and the game of chess
  21. Human action in narrative grammars
  22. Décrire la vision du monde: L’enjeu anthropologique de la Sémantique structurale
  23. Actualité de la rhétorique : métaphore et image
  24. De l’imperfection : un dialogue avec l’univers mystique
  25. Greimas embodied: How kinesthetic opposition grounds the semiotic square
  26. Le sens de l’échange
  27. The Semiotics of Nirvāṇa: Salvation in Buddhism
  28. La Succession
  29. Les études de société selon la perspective de la sémiotique greimassienne
  30. La factitivité, postérité d’un concept
  31. Selected works by A. J. Greimas
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 19.11.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2016-0182/pdf
Scroll to top button