‘Trans-Semiosis’와 독서 행위 - 『돈키호테』를 중심으로

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to come up with a new conception of semiosis based on this concept of translation. My working hypothesis is that reading is a form of translation. Over the discussion I would like to quote Don Quixote’s episodes for the illustration of my purpose. According to C. S. Peirce, semiosis is defined in terms of the sign action performed by three agents interconnected : Representamen, Object and Interpretant. Notice that Interpreter, the human being as a subject who operates the sign action is excluded from this initial definition ; he is at the outside of a semiosis whereas the semiosis is always operated inside him. The interpreter who is supposed to live his life in a specific semiotic sphere is an external agent of the semiosis that is operated in this sphere. From the perspective of this extended definition of the semiosis, what I propose here to call a trans-semiosis can be understood in terms of the semiotic trans-action that is realized at least between two different semiotic spheres. In this sense I’d like to claim that thetrans-semiosis as a semiotic trans-action is part of translation. Reading is part of trans-semiosis in that it calls for an interaction between two different semiosis situated. The reader takes the role of a traveler who moves across the borderline between the real world he lives in and the text world he tastes by the act of reading. From the point of view of the cognitive narratology, the narrativity that makes a narrative text narrative lies, not in a text itself but in an interaction between text and reader. Reading unfolds as a concrete form of this interaction. Reading a text is equivalent to making a hypothesis based on real life experiences in order for a reader to understand it. From this perspective, a strong, i.e., convincing hypothesis is that which is based on the experiences that can be shared by many people as well as applicable to many parts of the text. Don Quixote is not an ordinary reader who tends to read a text by making a hypothesis based on his real life experiences. He is a very special reader attempting to « read » the real world from a text perspective. My purpose is to describe this specificity by claiming that reading is part of trans-semiosis.