Exploring a Semiotic Conceptualisation of Modelling in Digital Humanities Practices

The chapter contextualises DH practices within a semiotic framework; namely it considers modelling as a strategy to make sense (signification) via practical thinking (creation and manipulation of models). A semiotic approach of this kind contributes to stress the dynamic nature of models and modelling, and to reinstate in renewed terms the understanding of modelling as open process of signification enacting a triadic cooperation (among object, representamen and interpretant). We propose to consider modelling as a creative and highly pragmatic process of thinking and reasoning in which metaphors assume a central role and where meaning is negotiated through the creation and manipulation of external representations combined with an imaginative use of formal and informal languages.