Between Pedagogy and Semiotics: importance of iconic and metaphoric language in media education

During the 20th century, pedagogy and semiotics pursued seemingly parallel paths. Indeed, there were numerous points of contact between these two disciplines until the emergence of edusemiotics, which attempted to apply the semiotic approach more specifically to the pedagogical field. Although this endeavor remained a fruitful niche research, it could today represent a renewed form of hybridization of semiotics and pedagogy, based in par- ticular on the centrality of the concept of “icon” , understood as a sign whose interpretant is linked to the object by “similarity” , and of metaphorical language as a figurative media rep- resentation of the real world based on “similarity” rather than identity. In the age of artificial intelligence, this hybridization could offer new ideas for a media education centered on the student and on dialogue with the teacher, placing critical thinking, the interpretation of signs and that of the student at the center, contrasting phenomena such as brain rot, cheating, cognitive debt and addiction linked to the use of chatbots.