Semiotics Study Group

by zero

I 've wanted to wrap my head around this for a while:

What happens, what is the mental or whatever process, when a card gets a certain meaning to you or, in other words (i.e. pompous nouns):
the exploration of the formation of meaning.

Symbols and their meaning are, I guess, researched by semiotics and when I wikipedia it, I have the three bullets

Semantics
Syntactics
Pragmatics

But I have no clue, which one would cover the formation of meaning in the individual.

When I do a tarot reading, I find it most intriguing to watch my thoughts crystallize around the nebulous base meanings of the cards,
and I just like to explore this in a more formal way.

Mr Google offered me some pointers to threads in the AT and also to Dr. Inna Semetsky which should prove helpful.

This will be a make-up-our-plans-as-we-go study, since I don't know enough yet to propose a path. I will start with hopping along the links.

ETA:
It seems to be straight forward: starting with Memories of the Past, Memories of the Future: Semiotics and the Tarot by Inna Semetsky...

by zero

Semiotics Study Group - Memories of the Past, Memories of the Future, Sections

I skimmed over the text and already struggle, because I'm lacking some background.

I think it will be best to proceed section by section to clarify what is out of focus of this study group and where it will be necessary to drill down and/or catch up. For now the primary target of this study group is to establish a basic understanding of the necessary terms to describe the formation of the meaning of a card. While I said before this meant during the interpretation of a layout, I'm actually more interested in the building up of meaning over time regarding a specific card in the personal history of a tarot reader.

These are the sections of the text:

Introduction
Tarot Myths
Tarot Layout: Spatio-Temporal Distribution
Semiotics and Tarot
Information, Communication, and the Emergence of Meaning
Conclusion

Introduction
From what I gathered from my quick walkthroughs it shows Ms Semetsky's motivations.
She seems to put this text in the context of some semiotic fields of research.
Which I'm basically not much interested in.
Let's skip it for now.

Tarot Myths
I know some of those. Let's skip those, too.

Tarot Layout: Spatio-Temporal Distribution
I like thist term: Spatio-Temporal Distribution. Especially in the context of tarot, it seems so weird.
This sections needs further attention to extract the useful parts of Semetzky's perspective and their applicability to our purposes.

Semiotics and Tarot
Right, this section title looks somehow extremely relevant.
We have this "magic semiotic triangle" which pops up over and over again in semiotic texts. And all so often with differing terms at the corners.
I guess this is the section to start with.

Information, Communication, and the Emergence of Meaning
... followed by this section, which looks like it might cover exactly our primary study group target. Though I doubt it a little from first looks. We'll see...

Conclusion
Might be a nice add-on...

Now my conlusion from this all:

Starting with Semiotics and Tarot followed by Information, Communication, and the Emergence of Meaning
If the ideas of those sections are mostly on target moving on to Conclusion, otherwise proceeding to the next point
Recapitulating the read sections, putting them in relation to the study group's primary target
Deciding on the next steps

by zero

Semiotics Study Group - Sametzky: Memories of the Past, Memories of the Future , S&T

I begin with the section Semiotics and Tarot of Sametzky's Memories of the Past, Memories of the Future: Semiotics and the Tarot as planned.
For starters this post will more or less be about paraphrasing the section to set up myself.

Sametzky has been studying Tarot for a decade when she wrote this text.
She presents an introduction to Tarot for semioticists quoting Sebeok, Posner, Guirad, and Noth.
It goes more or less like this: Tarot functions as a pictoral language.
It is read in form of a layout, a layout being a text in that language communicating a message.
This message can be interpreted in a counselling session,
which S. has researched in the fields of clinical psychotherapy, career counselling, and marital therapy.

The meaning of a Tarot card varies according to the subject in question and the positioning of this card in the layout,
both absolute and relative to all the other cards.
This variation of meaning is called polysemy, the cards are polysemous signs.

(Now the semiotic triangle:

)
Meaning is attributed to the cards by making sense in the process of mediation between the sign-vehicle (a single card or a structured group of cards)
and the referent (a detail of the subject in question).
The making sense happens along the lines of traditionally given correlations between (here: Tarot's) signs or sign repertoires and their meanings.
S. gives two of these traditional correlations for Tarot: the meanings of the positions of a Celtic Cross variant,
and the meanings of the entirety of Tarot trumps along the Fool's Journey.

For no obvious reason she crossfades from the explanation of the function of the card positions in the layout
to the explanation of the stations on the Fool's Journey without explicit notice, using the sentences:

Sametzky said:
The reading, as the means of indirect communication "fills up" such a dotted line [b.z.: between sign-vehicle and referent in the semiotic triangle],
when a card falls out after a card, until they form a layout in a semiotic process of creating meaningful structures of experience via iconic signs:

Noth "Handbook of Semiotics: 89" said:

sense is the mediator of the referent

Click to expand...

A pictoral phrase, another one, yet another, unfold into a narrative - the myth of an archetypal journey.
What is the informational content embedded in the twenty-two so-called Major Arcana?

Why a counselling reading would work is motivated by relating the meanings of layout positions and single cards to Jungian ideas
and to those of the contemporary philosophy of the mind, showing that the Tarot system mirrors universal experiences.

Thus the messages read from a Tarot spread use the terms of these universal experiences to the end of a potential transformational effect on the client.

So far so good. Next up is reading the section Information, Communication, and the Emergence of Meaning

Maskelyne

by zero said:
What happens, what is the mental or whatever process, when a card gets a certain meaning to you or, in other words (i.e. pompous nouns):
the exploration of the formation of meaning.

I think Semetsky was too narrowly focused on particular aspects of Tarot to encompass the ways in which we extract meanings from the cards. To begin with, she has given a straightforward account of the antecedents of the 'contemporary' Tarot without considering that in the acceptance of a particular perspective (that of Levi, Papus, and Jung, it would appear) she has already imposed an interpretation onto the cards. One of the things I notice when looking at a card is how this particular one compares to its representations in other decks. In other words, I see the card through my own set of cultural templates. There is also the sense of the ways in which this particular card, and by inference its author, uses various cultural streams as signs.

For example, when I turned up the 10 of Cups from the Bohemian Gothic the other day, part of the meaning I derived from it was from its sardonic take on the RWS tradition. At this point I'm also thinking of it in terms of the Thoth approach to tens as the descent to the basest expression of the suit's energy. There are other things in that card that are communicated outside the realm of Tarot: the dress and manners of the figures, the little dramas that are going on, and the way these things relate to various 10-of-cups memes. Not to mention having a good laugh at that mustache.

S discusses position in the layout, but misses an opportunity to discuss how the selection of layout is one of the ways the reader imposes structure and meaning. There's also more to be said about the ways in which the reader and querant interact through the cards.

I'll be back after I've gnawed on Information, Communication, and the Emergence of Meaning.

baba-prague

Communication, as pertaining to semiotics, is not confined to verbal signs as in the studies of linguistics, but includes the extra-linguistic and non-verbal modes. Semiotics considers pictures, as well as stories consisting of pictures, as belonging to the category of signs.

It's this kind of mind-bogglingly obvious truism, dressed up with words like "pertaining" that puts me off this article. I did my MA on semiotics and one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from my professor, was to throw out the gobbledegook and just say things plainly.

All the sentence above is telling us is that pictures can be meaningful. Duh!

Sorry, but to me, that article is a pretty unimpressive mix of bad tarot history and poor understanding of semiotics. I can't see the point of studying it.

(edited to add - I hope the author is not a member here. If so, I'll remove this post or reword it so as not to upset anyone).

EnriqueEnriquez

Hello Zero,

This is a great thread.

The making of meaning in the tarot works in the same way the word ‘mom’ works. When I write that word, I write m + o + m, but when you read it, you don’t see m + o + m. You see your mom, your kids, or whatever memories, ideas and emotions you have associated with ‘mom’.

Meaning in the tarot seems to arise as we map analogies between the image in the cards (and the words that accompany them) and our personal situation. In other words, when we are in front of the tarot (or in front of a reader) we detect certain patterns and select those that are relevant to us, while overlooking the rest. So, if someone where to point at Justice and start talking about the need to make certain decisions, our brain will search for relevant categories and find a match. Again, “making decisions” is not perceived as words, but as that guy you have to fire, that service you have to cancel, that move you have to make, or as you procrastinating in your couch, while that girlfriend you know is not right for you keeps making summer plans.

The way in which a person experiences a reading has very little to do with the way the reader experiences it.

Spreads are useful in that they delimit the range of domains we map our analogies from. If a certain card is in the ‘present’ position, we will map any idea the card evokes with our present situation. If a card is in the ‘family’ position, we will look for analogies between whatever the card suggest and our family. This helps at narrowing down the range of possibilities, making the search shorter, so the reading is perceived as less ‘vague’.

Since meaning is the product of our experience, things mean the experience we have had with them.

Now, the fact that the tarot is a visual language makes very exciting working with it because, many times, the cards elicit imaginistic responses without the need of words. So, sometimes, if the person you are reading for is engaged, lots of insights are passed on in a space that exists outside the boundaries of language. At the risk of sounding trivial, the tarot is a mute playing charades. When you ‘get it’ the epiphany is uplifting.

Thanks for opening this thread,

e. e.

by zero

@Maskelyne

I think Semetsky was too narrowly focused on particular aspects of Tarot

This might be true, but in a way we are all too narrowly focused on particular aspects of whatever.

without considering that in the acceptance of a particular perspective (that of Levi, Papus, and Jung, it would appear) she has already imposed an interpretation onto the cards

You are right, but still I wanted to have a starting point.
Remember, this study group is not about a certain perspective towards Tarot, except for formulating the emergence of meaning in semiotic terms,
especially the development of meaning(s) of a specific card to an experienced reader in retrospective.
Which philosophical, psychological, gut instinctive, or whatever background is used, even which deck, shouldn't matter here.

I would like us to generalize our individual approaches, if possible.

@baba-prague

I did my MA on semiotics and one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from my professor, was to throw out the gobbledegook and just say things plainly.

This, of course, would be most appreciated.
Since I had no semiotic background so far, I just had to start somewhere.
Now that we have an expert on the wire, it would maybe make matters much more straightforward?
Can you point us to a more appropriate write up, which would serve us better?
Or could you contribute something right off the top of your head?

@EnriqueEnriquez
Hi Enrique,

thanks for your thoughts.
I think, what you mentioned is important:
Searching for relevant categories, mapping analogies, detecting patterns, selecting them;
delimiting the range of domains we map our analogies from by a spread.
How can these activities be described in semiotic terms?

Since meaning is the product of our experience, things mean the experience we have had with them.

I'm not sure why and how exactly, but I'm missing something in this statement.
One aspect is, that some parts of the "meaning machine" are certainly hardwired.
You could say the hardwiring is the product of experiences we as a species had, still I wouldn't take this point of view.
I'd rather like to think of some parts of it as given, like e.g. Jungian archetypes (what else is there?) I'll have to mull over this a little more ...

the tarot is a mute playing charades. When you ‘get it’ the epiphany is uplifting.

Except that nobody knows the "correct" meaning beforehand.

It is recognized by the "uplifting" after the fact...

@all
Thank you for your contributions!
I'll stick with the Semetzky text for now, but I am open to different approaches.
I'd really like to put on these "semiotic glasses".
:cool4:

baba-prague

@baba-prague

Can you point us to a more appropriate write up, which would serve us better?
Or could you contribute something right off the top of your head?

Write up of what please? If you mean semiotics, well maybe start with someone like Umberto Eco, who writes in a very straightforward way.

If you mean the application of semiotics to tarot, then I don't know of any other texts - which doesn't mean there aren't any of course.

by zero

At this stage I'm only interested in stuff covering the application of semiotics to Tarot.
I reckon this is the best way to identify the parts of semiotics which are relevant to us.
And after that drill down, or bring up our own models, where necessary.

But maybe you would like to offer us a shortcut?
Then it would be nice, if you could apply your semiotic knowledge here:

Searching for relevant categories, mapping analogies, detecting patterns, selecting them;
delimiting the range of domains we map our analogies from by a spread.
How can these activities be described in semiotic terms?

Is this hard?
Then tell us what makes it hard.

Is it easy?
Then do it right away.

edit:
baba-prague, wanted to answer your pm, but:

baba-prague has exceeded their stored private messages quota and can not accept further messages until they clear some space.