Situated Semiotics in Education

We are driven to find meaning in the things around us because it gives us a sense of direction and purpose. Meaning, which emerges through context, interaction, and interpretation, is a personal experience, one that each learner must discover for themselves. Now, if you’ve ever tried to explain a joke to someone who didn’t get it, you already realise the same thing can mean something different to different people. The same words, gestures, or symbols can carry wildly different meanings depending on who’s interpreting them, where they are, and what they bring to the moment. This forms the basis of Situated Semiotics, based on theories of Charles Sanders Peirce and Umberto Eco. Learning is only meaningful when students can relate what they learn to their own experiences and use it to interpret new situations.

Peirce’s Triadic Model

Peirce proposed that every meaningful act involves three elements: the sign (the form that represents something), the object (what the sign refers to), and the interpretant (the understanding generated in the mind of the interpreter).

Take the word “tree.” The sign is the written or spoken word tree, the object is the actual living organism, and the interpretant is the mental concept, perhaps the image of a particular tree that the interpreter recalls. However, that image depends on personal experience. A person from a tropical region might imagine a palm tree, while someone from northern Europe might visualise a pine. The meaning, therefore, is situated in each interpreter’s context.

This goes to show that meaning is dynamic and produced through relationships and interactions. A sign’s meaning is always influenced by the interpreter’s background, intentions, and situation. Peirce also classified signs into three types, each representing different ways of linking a sign to its object.

• Icons resemble their objects (like a drawing of a tree).
• Indexes have a direct, causal connection to their objects (like smoke indicating fire).
• Symbols rely on conventions or learned associations (like the word tree itself).

In learning environments, younger children often rely on icons because resemblance is an intuitive form of understanding. As they develop, they learn to use symbols, which depend more heavily on shared cultural knowledge.

Eco’s Expansion

Building on Peirce’s foundation, Umberto Eco advanced semiotic theory, describing meaning-making as an open, ongoing process of interpretation. His idea of unlimited semiosis describes how one interpretation leads to another, then that interpretation also leads to another, then to another, forming an endless chain of meanings shaped by cultural, linguistic, and social contexts.

Every time we interpret a sign, we draw on our cultural background, previous experiences, and the conventions of our community. These interpretive frameworks act like invisible guides, influencing what we consider meaningful or appropriate. A simple gesture, such as nodding, might signify agreement in one culture but disagreement in another. The gesture itself does not carry inherent meaning; its interpretation is situated within the shared habits of a group.

Learners bring their own interpretive systems they've acquired over the years to the classroom. These are systems shaped by their linguistic, social, and cultural experiences. During lessons, they interpret new signs or concepts they encounter through the lens of what they already know. As a result, teaching becomes less about transmitting information and more about facilitating dialogue between different interpretive frameworks (the teacher's own framework and the students').

Teaching based on Contextual Meaning-Making

Learning as Situated Practice: Learners interpret new information through the lens of their social and cultural background. A student’s interpretation of a story, symbol, or even a mathematical concept will differ depending on their lived experiences. Effective teaching, therefore, requires sensitivity to these situated perspectives.

The Role of Context in Interpretation: Meaning-making is shaped by the environment. The same lesson can resonate differently depending on the classroom atmosphere, the teacher’s tone, or the social dynamics among students. Through discussion, students can encounter alternative interpretants to help expand their own understanding.

Encouraging Multiple Readings: From Eco's expansion, if meaning is never fixed, then the classroom should be a space that welcomes multiple interpretations. Literature, for example, is not taught as having one “correct” meaning but as a text open to exploration. Students who learn to justify and explain their interpretations can quickly recognise that meanings emerge from relationships, engaging in deeper semiotic reasoning.

Signs Beyond Language: Gestures, visuals, symbols, and digital media are all part of the learning environment. Teachers who attend to these nonverbal or multimodal signs can better support students’ meaning-making processes.

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References

Chandler, D. (2017). Semiotics: The basics (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Cobley, P., & Jansz, L. (1999). Introducing semiotics. Icon Books.

Danesi, M. (2007). The quest for meaning: A guide to semiotic theory and practice. University of Toronto Press.

Eco, U. (1976). A theory of semiotics. Indiana University Press.

Eco, U. (1979). The role of the reader: Explorations in the semiotics of texts. Indiana University Press.

Eco, U. (1994). The limits of interpretation. Indiana University Press.

Hoopes, J. (Ed.). (1991). Peirce on signs: Writings on semiotic by Charles Sanders Peirce. University of North Carolina Press.

Peirce, C. S. (1955). Philosophical writings of Peirce (J. Buchler, Ed.). Dover Publications.

Santaella, L. (2010). Perception and meaning: The dynamic of signs in Peirce’s cognitive semiotics. Semiotica, 2010(182), 1–24.

Short, T. L. (2007). Peirce’s theory of signs. Cambridge University Press.