We propose a theoretical convergence between Dialogical Self Theory and Semiotic Self Theory by using C. S. Peirce’s phenomenology as a metatheoretical framework. Peirce’s categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness account for all kinds of experience; they are distinct but intertwined. Our hypothesis is that this theoretical umbrella can combine complementary aspects of both theories, such as space and time, and the multivoicedness and integrative tendencies of the self. We apply the categories to analyze the externalization of the internal conversation of a participant in a qualitative study. The dialogue was elicited through a psychodramatic instrument that is based on J. L. Moreno’s empty-chair technique. In the resulting discourse, we observed aspects of Firstness: the fluctuating multiplicity of the I; of Secondness: the dyadic relation between pairs of I-positions; and of Thirdness: the self construed as a developing sign process that generates interpretants/voiced positions, and tends towards unity.
AbbeyE. (2007). At the boundary of me and you: Semiotic architecture of thinking and feeling the other. In SimãoL. M.ValsinerJ. (Eds.), Otherness in question: Labyrinths of the self (pp. 73–91). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
2.
AndachtF.MichelM. (2005). A semiotic reflection on self-interpretation and identity. Theory & Psychology, 15, 51–75.
3.
BakhtinM. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (McGeeV.Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
4.
BarresiJ. (2012). Time and the dialogical self. In HermansH.GieserT. (Eds.), Handbook of dialogical self theory (pp. 46–63). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
5.
BertauM.-C. (2014). On displacement. Theory & Psychology, 24, 442–458. doi:10.1177/0959354314533742
6.
BrancoA.ValsinerJ. (1997). Changing methodologies: A co-constructivist study of goal orientations in social interactions. Psychology and Developing Societies, 9(1), 35–64.
7.
ColapietroV. (1989). Peirce’s approach to the self: A semiotic perspective on human subjectivity. Albany: State University of New York Press.
8.
ColapietroV. (1990). The integral self: Systematic illusion or inescapable task?Listening, 25, 192–210.
9.
ColapietroV. (2006). Practice, agency, & sociality: An orthogonal reading of classical pragmatism. International Journal for Dialogical Science, 1(1), 23–31.
10.
DeSouzaM.GomesW. (2009). Temporalidade e Espacialidade na Estrutura do Self nas Abordagens Semiótica e Dialógica [Temporality and spatiality in the structure of the self in the semiotic and dialogical approaches]. Psicologia em Estudo, 14, 365–373.
11.
EllisB. D.StamH. J. (2010). Addressing the other in dialogue: Ricoeur and the ethical dimensions of the dialogical self. Theory & Psychology, 20, 420–435. doi:10.1177/0959354310364280
12.
FarmerC. (1995). Psychodrama and systemic therapy. London, UK: Karnac Books.
13.
FischM. (1982). Introduction. In Writings of Charles S. Peirce: 1857–1866: Vol. 1 (pp. xv–xxxv). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
14.
HermansH. (1996). Voicing the self: From information processing to dialogical interchange. Psychological Bulletin, 11(1), 31–50.
15.
HermansH. (2001). The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and cultural positioning. Culture Psychology, 7, 243–281.
16.
HermansH. (2003). The construction and reconstruction of a dialogical self. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 16, 89–130.
17.
HermansH. (2004). The dialogical self: Between exchange and power. In HermansH.DimaggioG. (Eds.), The dialogical self in psychotherapy (pp. 13–28). Hove, UK: Brunner-Routledge.
18.
HermansH.GieserT. (2012). Introductory chapter: History, main tenets and core concepts of dialogical self theory. In HermansH.GieserT. (Eds.), Handbook of dialogical self theory (pp. 1–22). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
19.
HermansH.Hermans-KonopkaA. (2010). Dialogical self theory: Positioning and counter-positioning in a globalizing society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
20.
HermansH.KempenH. (1993). The dialogical self: Meaning as movement. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
21.
HermansH.KempenH.Van LoonR. J. P. (1992). The dialogical self: Beyond individualism and rationalism. American Psychologist, 47, 23–33.
22.
JamesW. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Henry Holt.
23.
KetnerK. (1995). A thief of Peirce: The letters of Kenneth Laine Ketner and Walker Percy. Jackson: The University of Mississippi Press.
24.
Lopes de OliveiraM. C. (2012, June). The Bakhtinian self and beyond: Towards a dialogical phenomenology of the self. Paper presented at the XIV Simpósio ANPEPP, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
25.
LysakerJ. (2006). I am not what I seem to be. International Journal for Dialogical Science, 1(1), 41–45.
26.
MärtsinM. (2010). Identity in dialogue: Identity as hyper-generalized personal sense. Theory & Psychology, 20, 436–450. doi:10.1177/0959354310363513
27.
MichaelsW. B. (1977). The interpreter’s self: Peirce on the Cartesian “subject.”The Georgia Review, XXXI(2), 383–402.
28.
MichelM. (2006). O self semiótico: Desenvolvimento Interpretativo da Identidade como Processo Dramático [The semiotic self: Interpretative development of identity as a dramatic process] (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil.
29.
MichelM.AndachtF.GomesW. B. (2008). The relevance of secondness to the psychological study of the dialogical self. International Journal for Dialogical Science, 3, 301–334.
30.
MorenoJ. L. (1946). Psychodrama: First volume (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Beacon House.
31.
PeirceC. S. (1931–1958). Collected papers of C. S. Peirce: Vol. I–VIII (HartshorneC.WeissP.BurksA., Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
32.
RaggattP. T. F. (2010a). The dialogical self and Thirdness: a semiotic approach to positioning using dialogical triads. Theory & Psychology, 20(3), 400–419.
33.
RaggattP. T. F. (2010b). The self positioned in time and space. Dialogical paradigms. Theory & Psychology, 20(3), 451–460.
34.
RaggattP. (2014). The dialogical self as a time–space matrix: Personal chronotopes and ambiguous signifiers. New Ideas in Psychology, 32, 107–114.
35.
RansdellJ. (1986). Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914). In SebeokT.EcoU. (Eds.), Encyclopedic dictionary of semiotics (pp. 673–695). The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton de Gruyter.
36.
RansdellJ. (1991). The meaning of things: The basic ideas of Charles Peirce’s semiotic. Unpublished manuscript.
37.
RansdellJ. (1992). Teleology and the autonomy of the semiosis process. In BalatM.Deledalle-RhodesJ. (Eds.), Signs of humanity/l’homme et ses signes: Vol. 1 (pp. 43–48). Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter.
SalgadoJ. (2004, August). Methodology and the dialogical self: Many ways of killing a metaphor. Paper presented at the Third International Congress on the dialogical self, Warsaw, Poland.
40.
SalgadoJ.CleggJ. (2011). Dialogism and the psyche: Bakhtin and contemporary psychology. Culture & Psychology, 17(4), 421–440.
41.
SimãoL. (2005). Bildung, culture and self: A possible dialogue with Gadamer, Boesch and Valsiner?Theory & Psychology, 15, 549–574. doi:10.1177/0959354305054751
42.
UslucanH. (2004). Charles Sanders Peirce and the semiotic foundation of self and reason. Mind, Culture and Activity, 11(2), 96–108.
43.
ValsinerJ. (2002). Forms of dialogical relations and semiotic autoregulation within the self. Theory & Psychology, 12, 251–265. doi:10.1177/0959354302012002633
44.
ValsinerJ. (2005). Scaffolding within the structure of dialogical self: Hierarchical dynamics of semiotic mediation. New Ideas in Psychology, 23, 197–206.
45.
ValsinerJ. (2007). Culture in minds and societies: Foundations of cultural psychology. New Delhi, India: Sage.
46.
Verhofstadt-DenèveL. (2012). Psychodrama: From a dialogical self theory to a self in dialogical action. In HermansH. J. M.GieserT. (Eds.), Handbook on the dialogical self (pp. 132–150). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
47.
WileyN. (1994). The semiotic self. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
48.
WileyN. (2006). Pragmatism and the dialogical self. International Journal for Dialogical Science, 1, 5–21.
