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Abstract
An important development in linguistic anthropology has been the concept of language ideology, which draws attention to the social and political consequences of speakers’ reflexive understandings of language’s formal and pragmatic dimensions. By introducing the term semiotic anthropology, we mean to expand the scope of the reflexivity in question to signifying phenomena more generally. Semiotic ideology thus concerns people’s intuitive notions or explicit theories about what does or does not count as a sign, what knowledge signs are or are not capable of conveying, what powers they might contain, and what intentions they might reveal. To shed light on some of these questions, this talk begins by examining a conflict among three stances toward religious relics in early revolutionary Russia. In doing so, it explores some of the general features and implications of semiotic ideology, with particular attention to their potential contribution to an anthropology of ethics. Finally, it offers an argument against certain strong forms of social construction and a defense of a principled approach to comparison in anthropology.
