Book Description

In this monograph on Educational Semiotics, Francois Victor Tochon has produced a work that is truly groundbreaking on a number of fronts. First of all, in his concise but brilliant introductory comments, Tochon clearly debunks the notion that semiotics might provide yet another methodological tool in the toolkit of educational researchers. Drawing skillfully on the work of Peirce, Deely, Sebeok, Merrell, and others, Tochon shows us just how fundamentally different semiotic research can be when compared to the modes and techniques that have dominated educational research for many decades. He points out how semiotic methods can provide the capability for both students and researchers to look at this basic and fundamental human process in inescapably transformational ways, by acknowledging and accepting that the path to knowledge is, in his words "through the fixation of belief." In four brilliantly conceived studies, he shows us how semiotic concepts in general, and semiotic mapping in particular, can allow both student teachers and researchers alike insights in these students' development of insights and concepts into the very heart of the teaching and learning process. By tackling both theoretical and practical research considerations, Tochon has provided the rest of us the beginnings of a blueprint that, if adopted, can push educational research out of its entrenchment in the Age of Ideas into the new and exciting frontiers of the Age of Signs. This is a brilliant book and should be read not only by semioticians and educators, but also by anyone who wants to understand how we learn above and beyond the instinctual biological system with which we are endowed. Marcel Danesi, Professor of Linguistic Anthropology, University of Toronto What does semiotics, often seen as an abstract theorization of how symbols function, have to say to educators trying to do the difficult job of supporting student learning? Francois Victor Tochon offers us a sampling of practical teaching and research tools based in semiotic principles that help move education away from fixed methods, best practices, and rigid content standards toward understanding learning as coming at meaning sideways and creatively, always re-defining, re-imagining, and improvising for our own purposes here and now. Educators and education researchers sorely need to learn this lesson. Jay Lemke, Department of Communication, University of California-San Diego Educational Semiotics is a highly original work of scholarship. In four ingeniously designed studies, Francois Tochon demonstrates how semiotic analysis can be used to deconstruct the professional learning experiences of preservice teachers. These studies offer startling insights into the creative application of semiotic methods, the understanding of long standing issues in teacher education, and the nature of learning in situated contexts. Thus, this book is helpful to semioticians, teacher educators, and all those interested in how professionals learn through experience. The implications of his work are profound and their potential for further investigation is enormous. Tochon is pointing the way to a new field of endeavor that he has termed Educational Semiotics. John Henning, former President of Semiotics in Education at the American Educational Research Association, Ohio University Tochon's raises contemporary questions about the search for meaning and the processes through which we make meaning. His work demonstrates that meaning classifications are not products of a static system, but rather dynamic events which reshape their organizing as a continuous process of meaning creation. The four studies in this book are rich, flexible, and reflect critical knowledge transformation. Elvira Kati, Semiotic Society of America, Professor of Education, Ramapo College of New Jersey"