Abstract

The accompanying article aims to develop Eero Tarasti's inceptual theory of existential semiotics into a fully functioning if rudimentary model for semiotic analysis. It consists of the presentation, analysis, and critique of several of the essential but nebulous formulations that Tarasti offers, and the development on this basis of a tool for existential semiotic analysis: an existential version of Greimas' semiotic square. The particular concepts concerning which Tarasti is taken to task are transcendence, endo-/exo-signs, and understanding. In each case, the analysis and critique follows the same lines: revealing how Tarasti's implicit opposition to structuralism belies a fundamental misappropriation of the existential tradition and demonstrating how it is possible to develop his initial insights both into a more faithful appropriation of existentialism and into a more fundamental structuralism. On the foundation of the clarified concepts of transcendence, subjectivity, and understanding, an existential semiotic square is then developed that, while remaining rudimentary, will at least support basic existential semiotic analysis. Examples are given to demonstrate its functionality.