Forensic Semiotics: A Note on Applying Semiotics to the Study of Crime

• 作者: Marcel Danesi
• 来源期刊: 语言与符号学研究
• 学科: 政治法律
• 关键词: forensic science DETECTIVE STORY ABDUCTION CRIME MaΡa SEMIOTICS
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（1）
• 页码范围: 1-20
• 页数: 20页
• 分类号: D919

摘要

The scientific study of crime comes under the general categories of forensic science and criminology, which include a large set of related branches, from forensic psychology to computer forensics. The emergence of forensic semiotics as part of this interdisciplinary amalgam is relatively unknown among both criminologists and semioticians. This paper provides an overview of the main objectives of forensic semiotics and its importance to the study of crime. One of the premises of forensic semiotics is that there is a thematic and interpretive continuity between actual crimes and their fictional representations. Actually, contemporary semiotics itself can be seen to start with Peirce’s interest in detective fiction, from which he developed several of his key ideas, including the theory of abduction. This paper also discusses some case studies that have been carried out under the rubric of forensic semiotics, which indicate the relevance of semiotic analysis to the study of crime.