De la générativité à la « circuitation » : instanciations et modèles diagrammatiques d’une écologie sémiotique

Internally elaborated meaning must find a form of interactional expression capable of conveying its original qualities; the unexpected results of a long negotiation legitimately aspire to be translated into a contract recognized and safeguarded by institutions; and naturally, the process must be reversed, for a legal contract must manifest itself in interaction as an agreement on the roles to be played, the loyalty of the interaction must be converted into sincerity, and so on. Our aim is to identify three general circuits of meaning: an internal circuit, linked to the introjection and subjectivation of values; an external circuit, which is cultivated and administered by institutional jurisdictions; and a liminal circuit, which is located at the interface between the internal and the external ones and takes shape through interaction. The internal, external and liminal circuits forge worlds, i.e. ecologies, asymptotically closed (internal and external circuits) or open (liminal circuit) around subjectal, institutional and group instances. The generativity of meaning is no longer based on hierarchical relations (hyper or hyponymic) or syntax of conversions. On the contrary, meaning is seen as the product of a progressive, multi-level elaboration through circuits, one of which functions as the maieutic process of the other, opening up local conditions of possibility for actantial individuation (instances) and territorialization (zones). In this sense, each management of meaning is in turn confronted with its own making sense (or not), a condition that qualifies a form of life in coupling with its own environment.