Discursive semiotics in education: possible ways

Abstract

From the reading of two texts of Greimas – Pour une sémiotique didactique and in an interview given to Fontanille in 1984 – in which deals with relations between discursive semiotics and education, we question the paths taken in Brazil regarding the presence of this theoretical perspective at different levels of education. Such paths are set by the founder of the theory without the rigorous direction of a “didactic semiotics”. Questions about the relationship of Semiotics with other disciplines, educational spaces aimed at the methodology of this theory and more productive concepts for teaching in basic education are explored in an initial study of nine articles, a dissertation and a book that promote reflections on employment of semiotics in teaching. This study proposes, then, a bibliographical research of recent texts, having as source problems posed in founding texts of a “didactic semiotics”. We observed in the analyzes that most academic texts present semiotic theory as a support to the teacher, being essential in their initial, continued formation and lesson planning, stating that it is not necessary for students to know the theory. Other texts advocate a didactic transposition, by using the rudiments of theory to make students of basic education aware of the mechanisms of reading and construction of text and discourse. A practical proposition from the studies made may arise from a greater discussion and joint elaboration of materials that aim to teach by semiotics and not the semiotics in basic education, in view of the necessary training of teachers who know their bases well.