Hugo, 

Congratulations on your publication in Semiotica! I also find Peirce-L to be a 
great source of inspiration, and I was surprised and delighted to learn that my 
conception of the sign as a spiral has been a source of inspiration for you. I 
appreciate you letting me and the community know. In theory, it is clear to me 
that we're all connected and that we all influence one another to a certain 
extent, and this specific example makes the quantum field of signs even more 
tangible to me. Thank you! 

Kind regards, 

Cécile 


Dr. Cécile Cosculluela , Ph.D. 
Enseignante-chercheuse en langue anglaise, sémio-linguistique et traductologie 
Associate Professor of English as a Second Language, Semio-linguistics, and 
Translation Studies 
Profesora titular de lengua inglesa, semio-lingüística y traductología 


De: "Hugo F. Alrøe" <[email protected]> 
À: [email protected] 
Cc: "Cécile Menieu-Cosculluela" <[email protected]> 
Envoyé: Dimanche 15 Juin 2025 11:15:23 
Objet: Types of sign action 

List, Cécile 

The paper on the six types of sign action that I mentioned on the list a little 
while ago has now been published online in Semiotica. The paper is open access, 
and I have included a link and the abstract below. 

As I write in the paper, I am thankful for inspiration from Peirce-L over the 
years and in particular for the spiral-shaped drawing of the triadic sign in 
semiosis provided by Cécile Cosculluela in the thread “Graphical 
Representations of the Sign by Peirce,” January 2024, which inspired my 
depiction of a "mediating representation" in the paper. 

All the best, 
Hugo 

Alrøe, Hugo F. (2025) The six types of sign action. Semiotica. [ 
https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2024-0112 | https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2024-0112 ] 

Abstract 
The Peircean doctrine of signs is incomplete. This paper rethinks the standard 
model of sign action to provide a common framework for analyzing all the 
different kinds of semiotic processes, including the workings of thinking 
creatures, sentient beings, single cell organisms, social systems, and 
sciences. Through a detailed theoretical analysis, the paper shows how we can 
separate mediation (featuring the steps: source, mediator, and outcome) from 
representation (featuring the conventional sign correlates: object, sign, and 
interpretant) in Peircean semiotics and combine the two to establish a general 
model of sign action. This leads to the fundamental and, in a Peircean context, 
somewhat controversial ideas that there are not two but three dynamical sign 
correlates and, notably, that there is not one direction of mediation in the 
sign triad, but six directions, which constitute six fundamental types of sign 
action: perceiving , acting , interpreting , expressing , sensing , and 
reacting . The sixfold model of sign action is a step toward a general theory 
of semiosis, it promises to reconcile the split in biosemiotics, and it 
provides a coherent semiotic foundation for a general theory of observation in 
science. Chiefly, it offers a workable framework for semiotics. 

-- 
Hugo F. Alrøe, PhD 
Email: hugo.f.alroe \at/ [ http://gmail.com/ | gmail.com ] 
Web: [ https://hugo.alroe.dk/ | hugo.alroe.dk ] 

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