Towards a natural semiotics for centralising ‘out of this world’ images in research with children

Abstract

This article discusses using concepts from various fields across general semiotics, to centralise children's abstract images in research. The aim is to move towards a natural semiotics – which accommodates the primordial, natural and universal dimensions of experience – that children connote through their ‘out of this world’ images. Natural semiotics is a term used to interrogate typical socio-cultural orientations towards meanings generated through signs. It is an approach to the co-interpretation of children's abstract images that appeals to emerging fields in semiotics and philosophical models which suggest the natural world as carrying intrinsic semantic value. Moving towards a natural semiotics carries potentials for co-interpreting children's ‘out of this world’ signs, in relation to situated and universal systems of meaning. When children cannot narrativise their experiences, symbols and other abstract imagery naturally emerge. A natural semiotics approach can be valuable for trying to figure out meanings behind children's creative, and at times, unknowable-yet-known data.