Abstract
Within the rich legacy left by Thomas Sebeok, there is a critical concept of semiotic modeling that directly addresses the core of the philosophy of education in the light of semiotics and affords valuable implications for the nascent interdisciplinary field of inquiry of edusemiotics or educational semiotics, essentially a philosophy of human knowing. The present paper argues that the concept of modeling as in Modeling Systems Theory has elevated us above the long-standing debate over nature versus nurture in the discussions of education and sheds light on the dynamic co-shaping relationship between the modeling subject and its models, as well as the fact that human brain function bio-culturally, as is evidenced by a crucial concept in the field of neurophysiology known as “neuroplasticity” and relevant experiment findings from neurophysiological and cognitive researches over the past few decades. It further claims that life-long education is not just something educators and educatees should keep advocating, but more of a de facto state of human existence. It concludes by confirming that in future edusemiotic studies more attention can and should be directed to the determination of the subject’s semiosic stage, for which the semiosic capacities of the subject are to be further explored, tested and facilitated.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prof. Susan Petrilli and Prof. Paul Cobley for their professional suggestions and invaluable insights. Work on this study was also supported by the Jiangsu Social Science Youth Fund (15TQC004), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (First class funding, 2015M580444), the Significant Chinese National Social Science Fund (15ZDB092), and the Second Phase of the Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD: Phase II) (20140901). This paper is dedicated to the loving memory of the late Prof. Xiaojun Su, who was an honorable scholar of semiotics and linguistics, a beloved mentor, and a strong advocate for the combination of semiotics and education.
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