Abstract
This article reviews and discusses some the main aspects of the growing edusemiotic research movement. The authors briefly explore the historical antecedents to educational semiotics in antiquity, before going on to discuss edusemiotic’s fundamental “triadic” (non-dualistic) orientation. They focus on the use of Peirce’s categorical semiotic philosophy to conceptualize educational dynamics; the alignment of edusemiotics with biosemiotics; the relevance of Thomas Sebeok’s modeling theories to education; and the primacy of iconicity in learning. Throughout the article, it is emphasized how edusemiotics does not mean semiotics applied to education, as a pedagogical aid or teaching/research tool, but is rather, “thinking” semiotics as the foundation for educational theory and practice at large (cf. Stables and Semetsky, 2015).
About the authors
Alin Olteanu (b. 1987) is a post–doctoral researcher at the Kaunas University of Technology, actively researching in the fields of semiotics and education. He has authored various articles, as well as the 2015 book Philosophy of education in the semiotics of Charles Peirce: A cosmology of learning and loving, and is an editor/contributor to the recent Springer volume Readings in numanities (2018).
Cary Campbell (b. 1990) is a music educator and musician residing in Vancouver, Canada. He is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University and an educational researcher for MODAL research group. He studies the relevance of semiotics and the philosophy of Charles Peirce for conceptualizing the foundations of education. Recent articles include “Toward a pedagogy of firstness” (2018), “Learning that reflects the living: Aligning anticipation and edusemiotics” (2017), and “Indexical ways of knowing” (2016). He is also cofounder and editor of the website/magazine philosophasters.org.
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