SEMI-SYMBOLISM AND THE UNDERLYING TENSIVE CATEGORIES

Abstract

Through a practical analysis of a syncretic object – the children's book Chapeuzinho Amarelo, by Chico Buarque, with its verbal and pictorial components –, we have investigated different forms of apprehending the relations between the expression plane and the content plane. To do so, we discuss the limits of semi-symbolism: an analytical strategy that searches for parallelisms between categories of both planes. Most importantly, the contingent characteristic of semi-symbolism, which must be reconstructed at each analysis, makes all attempts at generalization difficult. We proposed thus a transposition of semi-symbolic categories onto those from tensive semiotics. We therefore showed how tensive categories – in both expression and content – organize the text globally, also suggesting its expansion to the description of syncretic texts in general.