Semiotics through the test of writing: editorial regimes and intelligibility

Abstract

The way in which the vocation of semiotics is understood necessarily translates into how research results are articulated and formulated. If the various conceptions of the discipline that discriminate the community of semioticians were clearly brought to light by Jean-Marie Floch in the eighties, his reflection only took into account the postures adopted by each researcher but was far too brief to tackle the issue of the texts produced by them. This question is what this article attempts to provide answers to by proposing a topography of the various types of writing that can be observed in contemporary semiotic literature, taking into account a central, not to say crucial, variable when it comes to research texts, that of their intelligibility. Largely inspired by the advances proposed by Eric Landowski in terms of interactions — here understood as those that texts build between their authors and their readers — the following paper allows to identify four major writing regimes.