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The Signs We Live by

The Relationship between Semiotics and Psychology

University of Regina, william.smythe{at}uregina.ca

René J. Jorna

University of Groningen, rjj.mjorna{at}bdk.rug.nl

In our introduction to this special issue on semiotics and psychology, we outline the background and motivation for this project, preview the main themes addressed by the seven contributions, and draw some conclusions about the mutual relevance of psychology and semiotics for each other. Our motives for undertaking this special issue were basically three-fold. First, we were curious, given the recent decline of traditional approaches to cognitive psychology, about the status of sign-or symbol-processing explanations of human cognition and behavior. Second, we were interested in the practical application of semiotics to understanding recent developments in electronic communication systems, particularly in the domain of non-linguistic communication. Finally, we wanted to pursue the relevance of semiotics to postmodern conceptions of psychology as a human science. Not all of the issues we had in mind could be addressed in the contributions to this special issue; however, they do reflect the wide diversity of scholarship in semiotics and they point to some unexpected parallels between the fields of semiotics and psychology. We conclude that future inquiry in both fields could profit from pursuing these parallels in more detail.

Key Words: general psychology • psycho-semiotics • semio-psychology • semiosis • sign interpretation • signs

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 6, 723-730 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354398086001


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