Volume 2022, Issue 248 - Special Issue: Semiotricity; Guest Editors: Raúl Martínez-Santos, Pascal Bordes and Jaime Nubiola

Tout au long de sa vie et dès sa naissance, chaque personne doit attribuer du sens à tour ce qui l’entoure : objets, individus, paysages … Cette construction d’une signification corresponde à un décodage de l’environnement humaine et matériel qui repose notamment sur la mise en jeu du corps et sur ses manifestations motrices. À ce titre, les jeux et les sports représentent un domaine privilégié ou cette mobilisation des conduites motrices est au centre de la construction d’un sens et de la décision du pratiquent. Ce décodage subjectif s’appuie sur les sonnées objectives de la logique interne de chaque activité ludosportive et des universaux correspondants. Inspiré par les avances de la linguistique et de la sémiologie, mais tout en soulignant ses mécanismes spécifiques, l’analyse sémiotrice explore les codages originaux des interactions ludosportives. Des sèmes particulaires, tels les gestèmes, praxèmes et els écosèmes sont identifiés. On note que les encodages et les décodages praxiques son plus ou moins rigoureux et ne possèdent jamais la double articulation qui caractérise toute langue. L’approfondissement de cette sémiotricité éclaire d’une nouveau jour les conduites de chaque acteur social, non seulement au cours des activités physiques mais aussi tout au long de sa vie.

Résumé Considéré comme l’action individuelle par excellence, le dribble renvoie le plus souvent à l’exercice d’une maîtrise technique que seuls quelques protagonistes d’exceptions sont à même d’exécuter. Cette image purement descriptive, centrée sur le seul pratiquant, n’entretient qu’un lointain rapport avec la réalité de ce qui constitue la raison d’être profonde de cette action motrice. Le dribble, entendue comme un acte qui consiste à conduire un objet, – une balle, un palet –, en alternant des temps de contact et de non contact, est avant tout à envisager dans sa dimension collective. Là est le point aveugle des analyses menées à son propos. Dans cette étude, on considérera le dribble comme un type de conduite motrice porteur d’intentions auxquelles sont attachées des significations de nature essentiellement sociale. Fondamentalement le dribble est relation, c’est-à-dire interaction. Il doit être envisagé sous l’angle de la sémiotricité, autrement dit des significations que les pratiquants lui accordent. Sa fonction est essentiellement d’annoncer les actions futures. À ce titre, il renvoie à une classe de comportements tactiques dont les significations relèvent d’une interprétation en situation sous la dépendance directe des règles du jeu sportif considéré. Loin d’être univoque, le dribble doit être envisagé comme un « signe » qui doit être décodé par les pratiquants en fonction de la grammaire du jeu considéré selon un double axe ; syntagmatique et sémantique. Ce travail à pour objectif de repérer les différentes significations possibles du « signe-dribble », considéré comme un praxème.

Résumé Dans les situations sociomotrices, l’engagement des participants n’est pas seulement réductible aux communications directes (impliquant un rapport à l’objet ou un corps-à-corps). Il est surtout lié à l’émergence de systèmes de signes assurant la dynamique globale du jeu. Nous proposons d’appréhender la communication comme un système d’interaction global constitué de plusieurs canaux. On y retrouve les communications directes mais aussi quatre systèmes de signes : celui des praxèmes, des gestèmes, des gestes et des communications verbales. Ce travail interroge la place de chaque canal communicationnel dans deux sports (football, handball) et deux jeux traditionnels (Balle assise et Trois camps). Nous recrutons trois groupes de 20 étudiants pour participer aux jeux mentionnés. Les communications sont filmées, décryptées, triées et catégorisées. On constate une forte prévalence des praxèmes dans les sports collectifs, tandis que la répartition des communications est plus équilibrée dans les jeux traditionnels ( p  < 0.01). La quantité, la variabilité et l’organisation des signes sont sensibles à la logique interne. Globalement, cette recherche tend à montrer que les jeux sont un formidable laboratoire in vivo pour comprendre l’organisation des systèmes de signes. Spécifiquement, elle apporte des informations sur le pouvoir socialisant de la sémiotricité de chaque jeu et sur le renouvellement des pédagogies qu’elle peut engendrer.

Résumé Depuis 1959, Pierre Parlebas tente de développer une éducation physique scientifique centrée sur la personne qui se meut et non plus sur le mouvement produit ou observé. La pierre angulaire de ce virage copernicien est un concept plein de résonances sémiologiques: la conduite motrice, entendue comme « organisation signifiante du comportement moteur ». En fait, sa proposition pédagogique est toujours allée de pair avec un projet épistémologique dont le noyau dur est une sémiologie de la motricité, c’est à dire une « semiotricité ». Si l’action motrice est le fer de lance de l’éducation physique la sémiotricité, c’est le fer de lance de la praxéologie motrice. Cinquante ans après son démarrage, nous proposons revisiter les fondements de cette conception de l’éducation physique qui reste aujourd’hui révolutionnaire. La sémiologie de la motricité est née sous l’égide de la Sorbonne du milieu du XXe siècle. Les principes du sémiologie linguistique de Saussure inspirent les concepts et les modèles de « un champ du signe discordant » qui bénéficie également des contributions d’autres auteurs pertinents du moment. Cependant, à cette époque, le pragmatisme et la sémiotique américains étaient bien connus. Une question se pose aussitôt: à quoi ressemblerait une sémiotricité triadique? Les processus de communication praxique déclenchent phénomènes d’anticipation et préaction motrices basés en une continuelle interprétation des intentions d’autrui. Paradoxalement, autant ces phénomènes communicatifs que les signes propres des situations ludomotrices (les praxèmes et les gestèmes) peuvent être plus facilement conçus et analysés avec un modèle plus complexe, voire triadique, que nous aimerions partager avec sémioticiens et praxéologues.

Résumé La sémiotricité se propose comme un moyen incontournable si l’on veut approfondir les registres symboliques de l’action motrice. Dans le domaine de l’éducation physique et sportive, les élèves apprennent à identifier et à détecter des indices signifiants dans l’environnement physique dans lequel ils évoluent. Un élève en situation de jeu, observe les comportements d’autrui et apprend à deviner les prolongements de leurs actes en vue d’anticiper des enchaînements d’actions et à conformer ses conduites aux comportements qu’il pré-perçoit. Ce faisant, il participe à un processus de symbolisation ou de sémiotricisation. Étant entendu que cette sémiotricisation est liée à la logique interne de la pratique, il est clair que l’adaptabilité sémiotrice dépondra des caractéristiques des activités retenues dans les programmes pédagogiques. Cet article se propose, à partir d’une analyse comparative entre trois programmes d’Education Physique et sportive (Algérie, France, et Espagne), et des corpus d’études traitant de cette question, de mettre en premier plan l’importance des choix pédagogiques dans l’accès à la symbolisation et dans la construction de la personnalité de l’enfant.

The traditional sporting games (TSGs) correspond to a set of signs full of meanings, which come to life through the motor behaviors of the players as they participate in its semiotic semantics. As a result of this exchange, interpersonal conflicts may emerge because of each person’s semiotic interpretation of the sociomotor dynamics of the game. This research aimed to analyze the comments of intense negative emotions that arise in conflicts of a praxical nature (motor conflict) in a TSG, in its different parts (generating agent, conflict response), and in the motor interventions of its protagonists (conflict management). A total of 160 university students ( M age  = 20.49, SD  = 2.28) participated in a competitive sociomotor traditional sporting game of cooperation-opposition: the Marro. At the end of the practice, all answered the validated GES-II questionnaire. Subsequently, a content analysis of 480 comments was performed using ATLAS.ti 8.4 software. The conclusion of this work verifies the existence of different levels of meaning in the semiotic experience that originate interpersonal conflicts in traditional sporting games. Considering the multidimensional network of signs and meanings that emerge in any game will help to understand the meaning of the protagonists’ conflictive motor conducts.

The wide range of semiotic possibility, through networks of motor communications, reveal processes for decision-making with playful meaning. We describe a physical education experience according to a sequence based on five motor games, corresponding to five networks of motor communications, with the purpose of revealing the signs to interpret a fully comprehension of playful communication. A total of 180 high school students were part of this pedagogic experience. Events (conducts) were obtained through the systematic observation of three game conducts, to be compared through the five games and thus offer indicators of motor complexity regarding decoding (low, medium, and high coding). Through the game sequencing studied, three blocks with different networks of motor communications were shown: their exclusivity and stability, their instability, and ambivalence, in addition to signs based on relationships of opposition, reidentification, and relativization. We propose that these signs should be transferred to a significant pedagogy with curricular interest for the physical education class.

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.

The practice of parkour in urban spaces by young people, especially those who call themselves traceurs (“plotters”), illustrates how identities are formed in an ephemeral way by reinterpreting spaces in the city – briefly and without leaving a trace. However, in a sort of paradox, these interventions are registered in the socio-digital spectrum, tokenistically anchoring and incorporating them into conversations and social interactions. This work aims to explain the practice of the sport called parkour as a socio-semiotic phenomenon. We have used some zones of Mexico City as a specific case for our approach. The foregoing leads to the conclusion that the meaning of parkour goes beyond its recreational role and places it as a relevant piece of identity for excluded urban social groups – even though these practices have been appropriated by marketing strategies. Our approach will use a cultural semiotics perspective, as well as direct observations and interviews as research techniques.

During the mid-1970s the extraordinarily dangerous style of free solo climbing (climbing without protection) emerged in the collective practice of a small community of “Stonemaster” climbers actively developing new climbing routes and the new “free” style of roped climbing in what is now Joshua Tree National Park, California. While its emergence might be interpreted as an affectively-driven, macho embodied social semiotic or ethnomotricity, in actuality the evolution of free soloing in the case of Stonemaster-era climbing at Joshua Tree may be more accurately understood as the logical consequence of an intensive regime of practice in which climbers developed a near absolute bodily familiarity with certain climbing routes. Eventually, the reasonableness of climbing with little and even no protection on a subset of these routes became self-evident and conventional. Free soloing, in the semiotic perspective of the later Peirce, manifested as a Normal Logical Interpretant in the Joshua Tree landscape. It embodied the living definition of self-controlled conduct, and the Symbols it cultivated testified persuasively to the growth of a creative corporeal intelligence actualizing near absolute degrees of free will.

This article deploys Peircean approach to bodily skills, foregrounding motricity as a semiotically mediated and a “suprasubjective” process. By examining two contrasting skills – javelin and martial arts – I draw out the relevance of dynamic movement to the semiotics of sport and embodiment. These contrasting movements expose different epistemological assumptions since they emerge in distinct cultural traditions. To attend to the cultural dimension of movement practices – including the mediation of signs making certain movement forms seem reasonable or desirable in the first place – I highlight ecological dimensions of each somatic tradition. This ecological focus aligns with Peirce’s project of tracking how semiotic signs are positioned and mediated. To make ecological factors of motricity more recognizable, I contrast somatic engagements that take place on synthetic, predictable substrates and somatic engagements that take place on variable, unpredictable ground. In a similar way to the classic gestalt figure-ground relations, where perception of a figure depends on the particulars of the ground, I suggest that the ground upon which somatic action occurs shapes the way we make sense of it epistemologically. These different grounds – both literally and figuratively – operate representationally via thirdness: they lead us to conceptualize movement in culturally and historically particular ways.

Tracing different kinds of semiotic practices in boxing, in our text we provide a detailed reconstruction of the way athletes and other participants interpret each other’s actions and integrate these interpretations in their own course of motor action. Drawing on an ethnomethodological approach we argue that these interpretations should not be seen as being isolated from their contextual background. This context (such as the rules of the sports) and the semiotic actions taking place within them mutually elaborate one another. Analyzing several video recordings and their transcripts, we show how the social interaction of boxing fights consists of a “multi-layeredness of semiotic practice.” These layers of semiotic practice are complemented by what we introduce as asemiotic practices. Asemiotic practices exploit semiotic routines that are a part of boxing and attempt at weakening and overcoming the opponent during the fight thus eventually destroying his or her semiotic capacities.

The average weight and height of National Basketball League (NBA) players is decreasing year by year (Brady, Benedict. 2017. Maybe we should call it skinny-ball: Weight vs. height in the NBA. Harvard Sports Analysis Collective . http://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2017/11/maybe-we-should-call-it-skinnyball-weight-vs-height-in-the-nba/ (accessed 30 September 2021); Curcic, Dimitrije. 2021. 70 years of height evolution in the NBA [4,504 players analyzed]. RunRepeat . https://runrepeat.com/height-evolution-in-the-nba (accessed 30 September 2021)). The trend in basketball is to privilege the tallest and strongest. If so, then to what does the body modification of NBA players respond? Will these changes reformulate the corporeity of what is understood as an NBA player? This text seeks, from the postulates of Jacques Fontanille (2008 [2004]. Soma y sema: Figuras semióticas del cuerpo [Soma and sema: Semiotic figures of the body]. Peru: Fondo Editorial Universitario de Lima) and José Finol (2015. The corposphere: Anthropo-semiotics of the cartographies of the body [La corposfera: antropo-semiótica de las cartografías del cuerpo]. Ecuador: CIESPAL), to point out that the process of body modification arose both from the introduction of a new rule (three-point shot) and the recognition to new corporealities. From data regarding players’ corporeality, shooting tendency and a body modification scheme, a new corporeality of the NBA player is proposed, one that is no longer determined entirely by height.

Fencing for the blind and visually impaired is an emerging sub-discipline of fencing that creates unusual conditions for meaning-making through interaction between embodied endowments and worldly affordances. With the rules of fencing slightly adjusted to the needs of the blindfolded participants – regardless of their sightedness – the discipline requires the fencers to engage in a duel by relying on other than visual cues. This article explores what an autoethnographic account of experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and visually impaired brings to debates on the embodied, and specifically sensory difference. The discussion of these experiences intersects with debates on affect, affordance, and habit, with all three having important roles in related semiotic processes. Presented vignettes draw upon the author’s lived experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and visually impaired and are analyzed as part of a mixed-method autoethnographic study, accompanied by sensory methodologies, with a focus on an inquiry beyond the visual. The vignettes elucidate how we make sense of our surroundings through a complex engagement with the ecology of sensory and affective processes. In addition to exploring the role of affective and pre-conceptual aspects of our experiences, the article seeks to understand how semiosis occurs through both exposure to as well as the active pursuit of specific environmental signs available to us. The article also derives from biosemiotics to examine the complex relationship between meaning-making processes and habits. Finally, the autoethnographic account provides an insight into how we habituate the world and our embodied differences and thus enable meaning-making processes.

In the sense of phenomenology, actions are special cases of acts of consciousness. Within semiotics, first Jan Mukařovský and then A. J. Greimas have established, in different terms, a distinction between instrumental actions and actions which carry their meaning in themselves. But this is insufficient to account for the variety of actions which comprises everything from the creation of artefacts, dance, sporting events, theatre, rituals, and much else. Already those actions mentioned relate in different ways to instrumentality and intrinsic meaning, as well as to (depictive) iconicity and plasticity. In this paper, I will be particularly concerned with dancing, especially classical ballet, trying to delimit it from sporting events and theatre. Apart from the sign function and the spectacular function, I will notably have recourse to what I have elsewhere term secondary (depictive) iconicity as well as to plasticity. In the process, I hope to be able to throw some light also on the nature of sport, by comparing and contrasting it to dance, as well as to the theatre as well as, more incidentally, to some other types of action. In a wider perspective, my ambition is to contribute to a general inquiry into the semiosis of actions.

Neuroscience has established several brain pathways that process visual information. Distinct neural circuits analyze body appearance and movement providing information about the person’s cognitive and emotional states. The activity of the pathways depends on the salience of visual stimuli for the organism in the given circumstances. Since ballet performances are not among the crucial events for the viewer’s organism, not all viewers perceive and interpret bodily signs that express the mental state of the dancer. Treatment of the dancer as close other activates the neural circuits that elaborate emotions, this enables the viewer to feel the internal state of the dancer and enrich the interpretation of the scenic action.