Introduction: What is sociosemiotics?

TL;DR: In the context of Semiotica, sociosemiotics as mentioned in this paper has been widely used as the preferred term for semiotemporal semiotics, which is the most commonly used semiotic term in the English language.

Abstract: What is sociosemiotics? It is not the easiest question to answer and any response will necessarily be incomplete. However, the current special issue of Semiotica attempts to address the question, partly derived from a groundbreaking panel of some of the world’s leading sociosemioticians at the ISI conference in Imatra, Finland in 2001. To begin with, it is not clear what the name of the object in question is. Is it ‘sociosemiotics’ or is it ‘social semiotics’? The former term tends to be dominant in the European tradition although, ironically, it echoes the predominantly Anglophone tradition (notwithstanding Gumperz, among others) of sociolinguistics. The latter tends to be associated with the Anglo-Australian, Hallidayan perspective in communication and sign study, although not exclusively so. (One contributor to this special issue even insists on ‘social semiotics’ as the key term because ‘sociosemiotics’ is more closely associated with Greimas and Courtés’ idea of an isolated and subjectivist semiotics.) Since one of the aims of this special issue is to bring together endeavors in the field from a number of locations, especially those that are infrequently acknowledged in the Anglophone world, we have alighted on ‘sociosemiotics’ as our designation. It is possible that this will become the preferred designation. Certainly, it is a less unwieldy term in the sense that one seldom hears reference to ‘social linguistics’ (despite an occurrence of the term in one of the contributions in this special issue).