Abstract
The analyses and discussions developed throughout the volume are based on the Semiotic Cultural Psychological Theory (SCPT). SCPT integrates relational psychoanalysis, Dynamic Systems Theory and pragmatic semiotics within the more general framework of socio-cultural psychology. SCPT conceives mental processes as ongoing dynamics of sensemaking. Sensemaking consists of processes of interpretation of the world that shape experience. These interpretation processes are guided by generalized, affect-laden meanings that reflect the cultural milieu and that work as basic intuitive assumptions about the world—what is and how it works—as a whole. SCPT adopts the term “symbolic universes” to denote such systems of assumptions. A symbolic universe is an affect-laden, pre-semantic meaning working as a basic, generalized assumption that shapes the experience of both the outer (i.e. the social and physical space) and inner environment (i.e., the experience of one’s body and feelings), namely, the embodied image sensemakers have of themselves and of their relation with the world. In their turn, a symbolic universe can be interpreted as the emergent effect of the interplay of a certain set of polarized, generalized embodied latent dimension of sense—defined “lines of semiotic force” by SCPT. This chapter outlines how symbolic universes and lines of semiotic force can be detected and the role they play in social development.
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Salvatore, S., Valsiner, J., Veltri, G.A. (2019). The Theoretical and Methodological Framework. Semiotic Cultural Psychology, Symbolic Universes and Lines of Semiotic Forces. In: Salvatore, S., Fini, V., Mannarini, T., Valsiner, J., Veltri, G. (eds) Symbolic Universes in Time of (Post)Crisis. Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19497-0_2
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