Off the pitch: semiotics of liminality between space and play
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Ruggero Ragonese
Abstract
Playing fields are “spaces where the communitas suspends its everyday life and structures” and “The internal logic of sporting games is connected to values from the social context” (Parlebas, Pierre. 2013. Motor praxeology: A new scientific paradigm. In Mariann Vaczi (ed.), Playing fields: Power, practice, and passion in sport, 127–144. Reno: University of Nevada Press). But what about the space in between? What kind of semiotics organisation can be detected in the membrane between player and liminal space where spectators are not allowed yet specific characters needed to carry out an event? We can therefore identify a liminality that can be connected either to the controlled or the wild playing field and depending on which of the two is the case can be analysed according to the degree of regulated system of signs which they produce. This implies different pathways and rituals: as matches are played, a variety of bodily activities may be taking place concurrently. Furthermore, it is inevitable that these activities attract the attention of the audience or alternately lead a player to interact with a non-player.
In this article, I will first try to identify certain semiotics features, especially connected to Eco’s Peircian concept of Encyclopedia, that characterize the status of liminal space around the playing field. Then I will focus on liminality in soccer, investigating what kinds of interaction exist outside the playing area.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: semiotricity
- Part I: Foundations of Semiotricity
- Semiotricité et corps en jeu
- Analyse sémiotrice d’un praxème : le dribble et ses interprétations
- Exploration des systèmes de signes dans quatre jeux sportifs : analyse comparative du football, du handball, de la balle assise et du jeu des trois camps
- Signe, science et jeux sportif : esquisse de sémiotricité triadique
- Part II: Physical Education and Semiotricity
- Education physique, conduites motrices et sémiose : pour une éducation sémiotrice
- Exploring socioaffective semiotricity: emotions and relational signs in traditional sporting games
- Signs, paradox, and sporting games in school physical education
- Part III: The Semiotricity of Ludic Space
- Off the pitch: semiotics of liminality between space and play
- Young parkour traceurs in Mexico City: a new way to meaning and identity in urban spaces
- Like a shark in the ocean: the semiotics of extreme precarity in Joshua Tree rock climbing
- Part IV: Semiotic Analyses of Sports, Dance, and Ballet
- Knowledge in action: what the feet can learn to know
- Semiotic and asemiotic practices in boxing
- The new basketball body: an analysis of corporeity in modern NBA basketball
- Fencing blindfolded: extending meaning through sound, floor, and blade
- Dancing all the way to the stage by way of the stadium: on the iconicity and plasticity of actions
- Watching and feeling ballet: neuroscience and semiotics of bodily movement
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: semiotricity
- Part I: Foundations of Semiotricity
- Semiotricité et corps en jeu
- Analyse sémiotrice d’un praxème : le dribble et ses interprétations
- Exploration des systèmes de signes dans quatre jeux sportifs : analyse comparative du football, du handball, de la balle assise et du jeu des trois camps
- Signe, science et jeux sportif : esquisse de sémiotricité triadique
- Part II: Physical Education and Semiotricity
- Education physique, conduites motrices et sémiose : pour une éducation sémiotrice
- Exploring socioaffective semiotricity: emotions and relational signs in traditional sporting games
- Signs, paradox, and sporting games in school physical education
- Part III: The Semiotricity of Ludic Space
- Off the pitch: semiotics of liminality between space and play
- Young parkour traceurs in Mexico City: a new way to meaning and identity in urban spaces
- Like a shark in the ocean: the semiotics of extreme precarity in Joshua Tree rock climbing
- Part IV: Semiotic Analyses of Sports, Dance, and Ballet
- Knowledge in action: what the feet can learn to know
- Semiotic and asemiotic practices in boxing
- The new basketball body: an analysis of corporeity in modern NBA basketball
- Fencing blindfolded: extending meaning through sound, floor, and blade
- Dancing all the way to the stage by way of the stadium: on the iconicity and plasticity of actions
- Watching and feeling ballet: neuroscience and semiotics of bodily movement
