Notes on the semiotic phenomenology of social discrimination

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to explore the application of some elements of Charles S. Peirce’s semiotic phenomenology to the study of social discrimination. Using E. Valentine Daniel’s ideas about the “limits of culture” as a point of departure to understand the process of semeiosis, this article argues that situations of social discrimination are a special case of the phenomenon where the process through which percepts are transformed into (new) concepts is incomplete. The distinctive element here is the fact that the process of social stigmatization is only effective if capable of semiotically manipulating signs associated to group identities. This manipulation reduces the semiotic complexity of the signs associated with whoever is stigmatized. Susan Gal’s three processes of semiotic manipulation, namely iconization, recursiveness, and erasure, and Harold Garfinkel’s work on degradation ceremonies will be brought into analysis as relevant cases.