The Semiotic Pentagram Framework - A perspective on the use of Semiotics within Organisational Semiotics

Organisational Semiotics (OS) aims to provide new methodologies, techniques and tools to the development of information systems and organisations by applying semiotic theories and studies, therefore offering a new perspective on the field, which incorporates technical and social aspects. In order to apply semiotics to Information Systems (IS) and Information technology (IT) different approaches were proposed such as Computer Semiotics [2] or the Semiotic Framework [20]. This paper was motivated and based in this last one, also known as the Semiotic Ladder (SL), which purpose was primarily to clarify some important IS notions such as information, meaning and communication. Ronald Stamper, his author, has extended the traditional semiotic disciplines or divisions of syntactics, semantics and pragmatics by adding three other divisions of social world, physical world and empirics which, all together, form the SL and, separately, provide different views for analysis of various IS concepts and notions such as those mentioned before. We think that the SL brought some interesting and important new ideas to the OS community, however its usefulness was not fully proven and its relation to semiotics fail to notice many semiotic aspects. In this paper we aim to bring these aspects into debate and real use within OS by giving some new perspectives of semiotics grounded in its building block – the sign – and by bringing human and material features into context. SL is also analysed from a theoretical and practical point of view and some of its most important notions are highlighted. As a result, another framework, so-called ‘the Semiotic Pentagram Framework’ (SPF), is proposed. This framework intends to solve some of the problems posed by the SL, however, retaining and clarifying some of its important features. The SPF intends as well to acknowledge and emphasize the role of the individual and the social and, most important, to relocate and to improve the role of Semiotics within OS.