Semiotic Activity

What is semiotic activity ?

I try to clarify the term, semiotic activity, from sociocultural theory.

Obviously, the problem of meaning and sign was a very important element in Vygotsky's thinking. He acknowledged that passing on culture to the younger generation is essential for the development of humanity, but he also realized that cultural meanings cannot be immutably transmitted to children in a ready-made form. Meanings develop, and they develop, in particular, in thhe learner during his or her interaction with other people. The learner is a crucial facctor in this process. With the help of other people, the child has to figure out the meaning of cultural elements. While doing so, the child makes his or her own meaning, which usually(but not always) comes close to the culturally shared meanings. Sometimes it diverts. In any event, it is always the learner's own meaning. It takes special communicative efforts to find out to what extent meanings are indeed shared. We can not do much more than assume that meanings are shared to some (a large?) extent. Actually, we would do better to speak of "taken-as-shared meanings" (see Cobb et al., 1993). As long as people can effectively communicate, there is a sound basis for the assumption that meanings are shared.

van Oers refer to the sociocognitive endeavor of (re)making meaning and symbolic means(such as signs, symbols, diagrams, schemes, models, actions) as being semiotic activity. Semiotic activity is defined as the(inter- or intra-)mental activity of creating meanings and signs, by refelcting on the interrelationships between(changes in) signs and (changes in) their corresponding meanings, and of adjusting signs and meanings accordingly.