TOWARDS AN INTERSPECIES SEMIOTICS: PRODUCTION OF MEANING ACCORDING TO BOTO’S THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SEMIOTICS (TPBS)

Authors: Booto Booto Grevisse & Ohaki Omelokoko Pango Placide

ABSTRACT

This study aims to expand the contemporary semiotic field beyond the human verbal model, applying BOTO’s Theory and Practice of Semiotics (TPBS) as a conceptual framework to interrogate the general conditions of signification in living beings. Adopting a qualitative and theoretical approach, we critically analyze literature in semiotics, zoo semiotics, and biosemiotics, as well as works on non-verbal communication and animal interactions in non-human primates. The objective is to question the limits of classical semiotic models and propose that the production of meaning be understood as a distributed process within interactions between organisms and environment. Our results suggest that certain interactions among primates constitute organized configurations of signification, dependent on social and ecological context. TPBS introduces the notion of “semiotic writing” to designate the processes by which living beings produce and interpret signs. In conclusion, this study opens a perspective towards an interspecies semiotics rethinking the boundaries between human and non-human communication, although this theoretical hypothesis requires additional empirical validations.

Keywords: Interspecies semiotics, Meaning production, TPBS (BOTO’s Theory and Practice of Semiotics), Biosemiotics, Zoo semiotics, Distributed signification, Semiotic writing

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