Towards a Cognitive Semiotic aprroach to cinema: Semiotics vs. 'Semiology'

Abstract

[Abstract] The point of departure for an eventual presentation is the question if a cognition (in semiotics) always has to be formulated in the terms of a triadic sign, as is it is done sometimes when applying a Peircian perspective on film (Ehrat 2005: 72). The problem of the importance of a “Third” is at stake when discussing how film produces meaning. To understand film is also to understand the concept of cinema, to paraphrase the famous example postulated by Peirce about giving and gift. But is it correct in this conjunction to criticise ‘semiology’ represented, for instance, by Greimas’ ‘transfer d’objet’ (Ehrat 2005: 121-22) of a degeneration into a dyadic approach not only to gifts but also more generally to narration (i.e., time) in film? Now, to refer to the opening line: if, according to Peirce, a cognition always is ‘a cognition of the Real’ (Ehrat 2005: 140) couldn’t a concept of the Real also be said to be comprised in Metz’s (another example of an early ‘semiolog’) postulation that ‘movement’ (here interpreted in terms of Peirce’s Pragmaticist concept of action) in film images convey life, i.e., the Real (Metz 2003 [1968]: 17)? This being so, one could add, because film is intrinsically iconic. Thus, may we dispense with linguistics when analysing narration in film? Well, linguistics is ‘not necessary to the analysis of filmic narration’ (Buckland 2000:5). As Sonesson (2009: 63) writes (about pictures) in ‘this respect […] pictures are actually better than verbal language at suggesting a story line’. The sequentiality of film — of course — enforces this inherent potential of