Biosemiotics (2017) 10:109–126

DOI 10.1007/s12304-017-9289-4

The Biosemiotic Glossary Project:

The Semiotic Threshold

Claudio Julio Rodríguez Higuera 1 & Kalevi Kull 1

Received: 3 January 2017 / Accepted: 2 April 2017 / Published online: 23 April 2017
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017

Abstract The present article is framed within the biosemiotic glossary project as a way
to address common terminology within biosemiotic research. The glossary integrates
the view of the members of the biosemiotic community through a standard survey and a
literature review. The concept of ‘semiotic threshold’ was first introduced by Umberto
Eco, defining it as a boundary between semiotic and non-semiotic areas. We review
here the concept of ‘semiotic threshold’, first describing its denotation within semiotics
via an examination on the history of the concept, its synonyms, antonyms, etymology,
usage in other languages and context in which it is used. Then we present a general
overview of the survey among researchers, analyzing the difference in responses for the
concept of ‘lower semiotic threshold’ and related concepts. From the answers we also
review the difference between the general usage of ‘semiotic threshold’ versus its
specific use within biosemiotics, and attempt to make a general synthesis of the concept
taking into account what we have learned from the survey and the literature review.

Keywords Biosemiotic glossary . Survey . Terminology . Umberto eco . Semiotic

threshold . General semiotics

This is why it is important to be present on the threshold, to find the other, to

communicate: because the threshold is the space of opportunity, of real
knowledge.

Marchesini 2016: 56

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12304-017-9289-4)

contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

* Claudio Julio Rodríguez Higuera

higuera@ut.ee

1
University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
110 C.J. Rodríguez Higuera, K. Kull

Introduction

This article, part of the biosemiotic glossary project documenting the usage of specific
concepts within the field, presents a review encompassing the notion of ‘semiotic
threshold’ and, more specifically, ‘lower semiotic threshold’. Every article in this series
(see Tønnessen 2015; Sharov et al. 2015) follows a similar structure and gathers its
information from a survey forwarded to a wide range of active biosemioticians. Both a
copy of the survey used and its responses are published as electronic supplementary
material to this article.
The concept of ‘semiotic threshold’ has been both influential and productive within
the biosemiotic literature. First proposed by Umberto Eco (1976) with at least two
variables, an upper and lower threshold, the concept has helped delimit and shape the
whole area of semiotic studies. Theorizing of the so-called ‘lower semiotic threshold’
has also provided biosemiotics with a way to set (and break) some of its boundaries,
specifying the level where one can refer to sign action in opposition to non-semiotic
activity. On the other hand, the ‘upper semiotic threshold’ refers to the limits of what
semiotic is within culture, and to what degree one can describe cultural systems as
properly semiotic.
There have been a number of attempts at documenting the usage of ‘semiotic
threshold’, most notably Nöth (1990: 213–214; 2000) and individual developments
taking the concept further; as in Santaella (2001), Nöth (2001a), Brier (2003), Kull
(2009) and Bruni (2015), to name only a few. The fact is, subscribing to the threshold in
some form implies being able to separate “the semiotic from the non-semiotic world”
(Nöth 2001a: 72), but this separation has been increasingly shrunk by research on
biosemiotics and zoosemiotics (Nöth, Kull 2001: 10). However the extension of
semiotic theories can lead us to posit challenges to the threshold view, via
pansemiotism on the lower end of the spectrum, or by extending the reach of the
high-complexity branches of cultural semiotics at the higher end. Interestingly, the idea
of a semiotic threshold is not only limited to determining where sign action is possible,
but also what areas of scholarship can semiotics cover, as a general discipline.
There has been at least one conference organized on the topic of the semiotic
threshold – the German-Italian Colloquium on The Semiotic Threshold from Nature
to Culture at the Research Center for Cultural Studies of the University of Kassel, from
February 16–17, 2001. The colloquium included presentations by Søren Brier, John
Deely, Claus Emmeche, Udo L. Figge, Jesper Hoffmeyer, Martin Krampen, Kalevi
Kull, Christina Ljungberg, Floyd Merrell, Winfried Nöth, Susan Petrilli, Augusto
Ponzio, Constantin von Pückler, Lucia Santaella, Dagmar Schmauks, and Frederik
Stjernfelt. Some materials from this meeting were published in a special issue of Sign
Systems Studies 29(1), 2001 (cf. Nöth, Kull 2001).
While our scope will only be limited to the usage of the concept in biosemiotics, the
idea that there is such a thing as a semiotic threshold separating not only levels in which
semiosis is effective, but also the areas of coverage of research, is a relevant matter to
consider for all semiotic endeavors. That there is no consensus on the location of these
possible thresholds should be taken as an advantage in discussing issues on the possibility
of sign action; for the ongoing discussion on the split between the semiotic and the non-
semiotic has been a productive tool in modeling and revisiting our positions on the role of
meaning in biology. In what follows we will document and describe the concept of the
Biosemiotic Glossary: Semiotic Threshold 111

threshold as it is currently used by biosemioticians in general lines in order to reveal a

point of contention as well as similarities in how it is treated.
Now we will examine the concept as it is used, its denotation, synonyms and
antonyms, and the answers given by the survey respondents.

The Concept and Term in Earlier Literature

Denotation

The idea of the semiotic threshold that came to fruition in Eco’s A Theory of Semiotics
(1976) is the backbone of the definition that has extended throughout biosemiotics. Eco
writes about the natural boundaries that pertain to semiotics, mentioning both the
lower and the upper thresholds as specific areas where we may find the semiotic and
the non-semiotic (Eco 1976: 19–28). This works as a differentiation between the levels
where one may speak of semiosis, and to which degree. In semiotics then, when we talk
about ‘threshold’, we refer, prima facie, to a qualitative separation between degrees of
validity between semiotic possibility and what cannot be considered semiotic.
The concept of threshold is, however, not limited to a specific semiotic understand-
ing. The idea of thresholds as an epistemological organization of levels of knowledge
has had some currency in psychology, more specifically referring to sensory threshold
(Smith 2008: 34–36), and in more general terms, as a way to frame ranges of reference
for certain elements within scientific practices, from biology and ecology to physics.
The notion also lends itself to the hierarchical arrangement of stages across certain
domains within the previously mentioned areas. Within education, we may find specific
concepts of threshold in different areas, both within “hard” and “soft” disciplines. 1
These threshold concepts can be used to evaluate some particular skills and their
achievement, but when it comes to describing the relevance of a threshold concept,
we may be facing a divide between the ontological and the epistemological.
In general then, the idea of a threshold concept can be described as giving an
account of the reaching of a certain stage in description, but also what the transforma-
tive process that has been achieved really means for the elements that have passed a
certain threshold.
Eco introduces not only the idea and concept of a semiotic threshold, however, but a
distinction between levels in what he calls the lower – separating from non-semiosic – and
the higher thresholds of semiotics – separating from the cultural phenomena that are
described without inclusion of their semiosic nature. In addition to that, we can distinguish
an epistemological threshold that deals with the metalanguage of semiotics (Bellucci 2011).
More specifically, the lower threshold of semiotics introduces a distinction between
what can be considered as semiotic and what is simpler than that. Eco determines that

since everything can be understood as a sign if and only if there exists a

convention which allows it to stand for something else, and since some

1
Atherton, James; Hadfield, Peter; Meyers, Renee 2008. Threshold concepts in the wild. Paper presented at
Threshold Concepts: from Theory to Practice conference, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario [18–20
June].
112 C.J. Rodríguez Higuera, K. Kull

behavioral responses are not elicited by convention, stimuli cannot be regarded as

signs. (Eco 1976: 19)

The notion, introduced as an explanation on the so-called natural boundaries of

semiotic phenomena at the simpler level, is then a theoretical distinction between what
a sign can be and what is less than a sign. This is compounded by the assertion that
despite considering signs as exclusively conventional, it “does not necessarily mean
that a semiotic approach ought not to be concerned with them” (Eco 1976: 20). More
importantly, at this point Eco considers that

The phenomena on the lower semiotic threshold should rather be isolated as

indicating the point where semiotic phenomena arise from something non-semi-
otic, as a sort of ‘missing link’ between the universe of signals and the universe of
signs. (Eco 1976: 21)

The lowering of the semiotic threshold, however, has been witnessed by a number of
scholars within semiotics (Nöth, Kull 2001; Nöth 2001a, 2001b; Santaella
2001), fostered by the development of a semiotic understanding of ethology
(Sebeok 1979; Maran 2010) and taking semiotics as a science of life, as
opposed to a science of culture (Petrilli 2004: 28). This repositioning of the threshold,
as noted by the previous authors, has created a more productive situation for the growth
in biosemiotic research.
Nöth specifies that the lower semiotic threshold is a boundary for protosemiosis:

we can define protosemiosis as the most rudimentary process of semiosis, a

process that barely fulfils the minimum requirements of semiosis and is hence
just above the semiotic threshold between the semiotic and the non-semiotic
world, if such a threshold exists at all. (Nöth 2001b: 13)

Thus, the lower semiotic threshold has a direct bearing on the problem of minimal
semiosis (Rodríguez Higuera 2016). As such, it is this area of the concept of semiotic
threshold that carries the most interest for documenting biosemiotic concepts and their
direct influence on research.

Synonyms

The concept of threshold does not present clear-cut synonyms that can replace it so
easily within semiotic discourse. However, related terms such as hierarchies and levels
present some relevant degree of similarity with the idea of a threshold that separates
some aspects of what we may consider as semiotic (either by epistemological appre-
hension or by ontological assumption) from something beyond or below it. Hierarchical
views of the semiotic are not a unified theory, and one may find different flavors to it.
Zlatev (2009) takes hierarchy as a unifying approach between the evolutionary and the
phenomenological, while Salthe (1985, 2004) and, following his lead, El-Hani et al.
(2009) use hierarchization as a means of conceptualizing the emergence of semiosis
and the general structure of semiosic phenomena across different levels of evolution. It
is worth noting that this evolutionary view that makes use of specific levels can be seen
Biosemiotic Glossary: Semiotic Threshold 113

in Koch (1986), and some form of level-based understanding of evolutionary scales of

semiosis are part of the mainstream biosemiotic scholarship (cf. Kull 2009).
Another synonyms to take into consideration are those of ‘semiotic transition’ and
‘semiotic barrier’. The first has been used in different contexts to refer to the movement
towards a more complex level of semiotic usage within a perceptual-epistemological
setting of semiosis. McCune and Zlatev (2015: 162) talk about a transition from the
behavior in infants towards “referential word use”. At the same time, Floyd Merrell
(2013) talks about semiotic development from the pre-linguistic to the full capacity for
sign interpretation. And while there is some shared meaning between both, the methods
and conceptual apparatuses are not readily compatible. Liu and Owyong (2011)
stipulate a potential semiotic transition between language and symbol usage at least
when it comes to the development of scientific knowledge. Referring to mathematical
discourse, O’Halloran defines semiotic transition as

System choices result in discourse moves in the form of macro-transitions which

shift the discourse to another Item consisting primarily of another semiotic
resource, or alternatively macro-transitions within Item occur. (O’Halloran
2005: 169)

The caveat here is that this idea of semiotic transition hinges on the idea of
intersemiosis, a term related to Jakobson’s semiotics and the related semiotics of
translation as developed by Torop (2003). However, the cultural scope of the concept
sets it further away from the more specific biosemiotic claims that we have seen before.2
The idea of a semiotic barrier is also related to the concept of the semiotic threshold.
Lotman talks of “semiotic barriers” that must be overcome in acts of communication
(Lotman 1990: 143). These barriers are to be understood as qualitative difference
between communicative capacities. Lotman illustrates it with the example of a mother
and her baby, which can be approached by biosemiotics through the understanding of
biological organisms as textual systems (Kull 1999: 126). While this notion can be
better understood in light of Lotman’s theory of semiotics, it converges with the
semiotic transition that we have examined before and it resonates with the sense of a
semiotic threshold when related to the development of semiotic capabilities in
organisms. Spinks (1991) also makes use of the concept of ‘semiotic barrier’ to signify
a qualitative different between interpretative systems. In general, the idea that there can
be semiotic barriers has to do with either codal or systematic differences given for an
interpretative agent. For instance, Halliday mentions a semiotic barrier between differ-
ent aspects — the synoptic/dynamic complementarity — of learning within a linguistic
framework (Halliday 1993: 112). Alternatively, de Mattos and Chaves argue that in the
transition from youth to adulthood, individuals develop their own semiotic barriers to
inhibit the development of new meanings (Mattos, Chaves 2013: 97). What can be
surmised from these different, psycholinguistic meanings is that semiotic barriers are
readily available as a concept for making a qualitative assessment of meaning gener-
ation and boundaries that appear within specific context, be those psychological or
social.

2
Intersemiotic translation can be successfully incorporated to biosemiotic parlance as seen in Kull and Torop
(2003).
114 C.J. Rodríguez Higuera, K. Kull

It is also relevant to mention the concept of thresholds of sense, together with the
upper and lower thresholds of sense-giving and sense-reading, as used by Robert Innis
(2016). As he states, “It is essential to develop an adequate model of the thresholds of
sense that function as the points of interpenetration between selves and their worlds”
(Innis 2016: 355).

Antonyms

Finding a polar opposite to the concept of threshold implies taking into account the idea
of non-differentiation across a spectrum. Notions on continuity such as Peircean
synechism do not deny the possibility of differentiated thresholds, and it is possible
to have a pansemiotic view that still allows for some hierarchies to be part of the theory
(see Salthe 2007). If we take the antonym of ‘threshold’ as a point of end or closure,
then we are only limited to a soft sense that will not present a theoretical challenge to
the notion of a threshold itself. Instead, it appears to mark only a singular point within a
continuum of which the threshold is a part.

Etymology

The origin of the concept of threshold in English is inherently related to its most literal
denotation, the bottom area of a door that must be crossed when entering through it.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (2003) traces the word to the
Old English þersċold, and this to the Old Norse þresk(j) ldr, with the first component of
the word is to thresh, “to separate the seeds of corn, wheat, etc. from the plant by using
a special machine or tool” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary 2014). It is important
to note that the etymology of threshold is different from that of related terms in other
languages. Despite its constant use in English, the concept itself was originally
presented in semiotics in Italian by Eco (1975), but the rather direct translation between
Italian and English makes it possible to make sense of a unified perspective regarding
both the usage in English and other languages. We will examine the concept as
presented in other languages later in the text.

Related Terms in English and Other Languages

The most relevant non-English term when it comes to the concept of threshold is that of
soglia, the Italian word used by Eco to refer to what was later translated as the
threshold. The origin of soglia is, unlike threshold, of Latin origins, with solea, sandal
or sole of a shoe, at the origin of the modern usage. The concept of soglia is extremely
close to the French seuil, also used across translations of Eco’s work to describe the
semiotic threshold. In this vein, what Eco (1975) calls la soglia inferiore della
semiotica turns into le seuil inférieur de la sémiotique and the lower threshold of
semiotics, but this is also used in reference to primary iconism, iconismo primario in
Italian or iconisme primaire in French, as it happens across the different language
versions of Kant and the Platypus (1997; 1999a; 1999b). Given the relevance of both
Italian and French for semiotic scholarship, it is also important to keep in mind how
soglia precedes threshold when it comes to its direct application in semiotics, but the
direct translation between concepts allows for an apparently smooth transition between
Biosemiotic Glossary: Semiotic Threshold 115

languages. Beyond semiotic use, the idea of threshold as a limit within a certain range
also maps to the concepts of seuil and soglia with the caveat that seuil refers more
properly to a doorstep than it does to a threshold. This imperfect correlation is,
however, not problematic when it comes to the usage of threshold as a level concept.
Other translations to the concept of threshold are Schwelle in German, umbral in
Spanish. In Estonian, the semiotic threshold is semiootiline lävi.
The concept of seuil from the semiotic literature has seen some usage beyond the
translations of Eco’s works. The Dictionnaire de sémiotique générale mentions the
concept of seuil as related to that of interprétation (Hébert 2016: 120), mentioning
specifically the treatment Klinkenberg gives to the concept. In this regard, Klinkenberg
uses the concept of seuil and seuillage (thresholding) within a framework that he calls
cognitive (Klinkenberg 2001) within a theory of semiogenesis from an experiential
background. Seuillage, part of the mechanism of differentiation between qualities, is
understood by stating that the variations between stimuli below a certain intensity or
threshold are not considered, whereas those that pass the threshold become part of a
different quality in perception. Thresholds, Klinkenberg adds, only come from the
dialectic between stimuli and recipient organisms.
As for other related concepts in English, the semiotic synonyms we have examined
earlier can be complemented with general concepts for the literal sense of threshold,
such as sill, entrance or gateway, whereas the metaphorical sense is related to start,
opening, initiation and to lower limit, starting point and margin, according to the
Oxford dictionary (2014). English also makes use of the concept of thresholding in
image processing technologies to represent the segmentation of an image into its
background elements and the object depicted (Gonzalez, Woods 2001: 595).
Certainly, most of semiotics is concerned with the less literal sense of the concept.

Connotations in Different Contexts of use

As it was mentioned earlier, the concept of threshold is directly tied to the crossing of a
door. And as it stands, the non-metaphorical usage of threshold is of little bearing to
semiotics as a whole. The idea, however, of a threshold in the metaphorical sense
allows for a wide range of specific conceptualizations about degrees that can be crossed
for something to reach or become something else. We have previously mentioned that
we can find thresholds as conceptual tools in fields as diverse as education, psychology
and physics. We can understand the productivity of the concept by assuming that it
connotes no specific ontology on its own, and that even when applied metaphorically,
its up to the specificities of the definition used within a field how far-reaching it can be.
With this in mind, thresholds can be found in a variety of sources, and the semiotic
threshold is no exception.3

3
A question that one could raise is whether ‘semiotic threshold’ and ‘threshold of semiotics’ count as different
concepts. For all intents and purposes, we have assumed both to be the same and it seems to be the case that
most scholarship using the concept does not make a difference between either of them, but it is conceivable
that when talking of a ‘semiotic threshold’ we may think of a phenomenon related to sign action itself, whereas
talking of the ‘threshold of semiotics’ may refer to an epistemological concept, deriving from the definitions
first used by Eco, with the first being related to the so-called ‘natural’ boundaries and the latter, to the
‘epistemological’ boundary.
116 C.J. Rodríguez Higuera, K. Kull

The specificity of the concept of semiotic threshold, however, limits its contexts of
use to those referring to the triggering of interpretative capabilities, specific or other-
wise. This comes up in research on psychology (De Luca Picione, Freda 2016),
psychotherapy (Salvini et al. 2012), marketing (Meenaghan 1995) or law (Garrett
2010), but also within biosemiotics, with thresholds marking up points of perceptual
relevance or effectiveness of sign action. In fact, we can find mentions of perceptual
thresholds taking from Uexküll (Hendlin 2016) 4 and from research on minimal
cognition (Castro García 2011), as well as direct inquiries into the semiotic threshold
as a biological phenomenon (Giorgi, Bruni 2015), to name only a few.
The specific answers given by the survey respondents can be found in the supple-
mentary annex, with more specific references to usage by biosemioticians.

Survey among Researchers

Materials and Methods

Following the methodology of the previous articles within the glossary, we have
sourced a survey to the active biosemiotics community in order to gather data about
their own usage of the concept as well as the adequacy of some of the often-cited
sources making use of it. In consistency with Tønnessen (2015) and Tønnessen et al.
(2016), the survey has been forwarded electronically to members of the editorial board
of Biosemiotics, the board members of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies
(ISBS) and to participants at the 2016 Gatherings in Biosemiotics in Prague. The
questionnaire asked the respondents to identify their field in an open-ended manner
and proceeded to ask multiple-choice questions on what the respondents thought were
relevant quotes on the usage of ‘semiotic threshold’.
In general lines, the self-identification of the respondents accounted for different
areas of research and specialization, such as philosophy, biology, biosemiotics proper,
but also semiotics in a more general scale. While it is true that we can identify
interdisciplinary aspects to the biosemiotic endeavor, the axes of interest lie on biology
and philosophy. Other responses included complexity science, physics of symbols and
anthropology.
Considering the number of respondents (16), our analysis is better taken as a
qualitative take on the usage of the concept and should not represent an important
quantitative selection of the repetition of the term, in line with the background of the
project (Tønnessen 2015: 126). However, given the qualitative nature of the analysis, it
is our thought that the data is representative of some main perspectives on biosemiotics
thought, to the degree that the sample group is, indeed, actively engaged in activities
related to biosemiotics and is aware of the concept and, to some extent, has used the
concept in academic work. Particularly, when prompted to give a description of the
‘semiotic threshold’, 100% of the respondents provided an answer. In contrast, when
prompted to give a definition for the concept of ‘lower semiotic threshold’, one fourth
of the respondents could not provide a definition or saw it as synonymous with
‘semiotic threshold’.

4
Uexküll talks about organisms’ specific thresholds of perception (2010 [1934]: 175).
Biosemiotic Glossary: Semiotic Threshold 117

The problems presented in Tønnessen, Magnus and Brentari (2016: 131–133)

regarding the type of survey done here persist in the quantity of respondents. We
understand ‘biosemiotic thought’ here at the level of high engagement with the
discipline. Engagement here by design is considered as being a contributor to
biosemiotic scholarship, and every single respondent has in fact published academic
papers on biosemiotics, most of them in specialized journals such as Biosemiotics.

Results

The survey presented respondents with five different alternatives for the concept of
lower semiotic threshold, each of which could be evaluated by the respondent with any
of the following four options: (A) perfectly suitable; (B) generally suitable; (C)
somewhat suitable; (D) not at all suitable. The citations used are the following:

1. “By natural boundaries I mean principally those beyond which a semiotic approach
cannot go; for there is non-semiotic territory since there are phenomena that cannot
be taken as sign-functions” (Eco 1976: 6) — “The phenomena on the lower
threshold should rather be isolated as indicating the point where semiotic phenom-
ena arise from something non-semiotic, as a sort of 'missing link' between the
universe of signals and the universe of signs” (Eco 1976: 21)
2. “The lower semiotic threshold distinguishes between semiosic and non-semiosic”
(Hoffmeyer, Kull 2011: 281) — “When trying to formulate once again our
understanding of the precise conditions for semiosis to appear, i.e. the lower
semiotic threshold, we listed a series of specific characteristics of the mechanism
that brings semiosis into existence. These characteristics may include memory,
self-replication, recognition, agency, inside-outside distinction, codes, semiotic
controls, etc.” (Kull 2009: 9)
3. “Sign making is the threshold between cybernetics and semiotics. To create a
difference that makes a difference is to establish a sign for it (an Interpretant) in an
embodied mind. Before this, it is only second-order cybernetic signals – or quasi-
semiotic, according to Peirce. The whole subject area of cybernetic information
theory is therefore quasi-semiotic. Beneath this is the physicochemical level, which
is generally best described in terms of energy, matter, and causality by natural forces
(Secondness) but in the long term does have Thirdness processes that develop ‘natural
law’ through symmetry breaking and habit formation in evolution.” (Brier 2008: 391)
4. “Peirce draws this dividing line between dyadic and triadic interactions. His
semiotic threshold is the one which leads from dyads of interactions between
physical causes and effects to triadic interactions in which an organism interprets
(forms an interpretant of) its environment, the signifying stimulus (representamen),
relative to a goal (the object) which is distinct from the environmental stimulus.”
(Nöth 1994: 3)
5. “It is customary to recognize the cell as the most elementary integration unit for
semiosis, i.e., as the lowest semiotic threshold.” (Bruni 2015: 1086)

These options were chosen within the diversity of opinions on what exactly the
lower threshold of semiotics is. We can attest to the diversity of understandings of what
is meant by it with the difference in opinion given to each of the definitions presented.
118 C.J. Rodríguez Higuera, K. Kull

The results can be seen in Fig. 1, but we can see that the most commonly accepted as
‘perfectly suitable’ is definition 2, with 9 respondents choosing this alternative, and
overall, 87% of the respondents accepted it as either perfectly or generally suitable,
followed by definition 1 (5 respondents chose ‘perfectly suitable’ and 7 chose ‘gener-
ally suitable’ for a total of 75% of the respondents siding with either alternative).
The majority of the respondents chose definition 2 as the most suitable, with 14
respondents choosing either perfectly or generally suitable. Definition 5 had the second
largest number of respondents choosing perfectly suitable, but when we combine
perfectly and generally suitable, definition 1 takes a higher share of positive responses.
Interestingly, definition 1, along with definition 4, received the highest count of ‘not at
all suitable’ responses (3 in both cases).
While generally positive towards Eco’s general definition (1), the respondents did
not find it to perfectly represent biosemiotic thinking. In turn, the Tartu-Copenhagen
definition (2) found itself to be the most widely accepted in the range of ‘perfectly
suitable’, with the lowest number of respondents choosing either ‘somewhat suitable’
or ‘not at all suitable’. Due to the sample size we can only assume that scholars
involved directly with biosemiotics such as the respondents may be more familiar with
the “lowered” threshold presented by Hoffmeyer and Kull than the more traditional one
by Eco. Brier’s definition (3), being more specific to his project of cybersemiotics, finds
the highest rate of responses as ‘somewhat suitable’. The strong Peircean language used
in the definition is echoed by Nöth (4), garnering a higher number of respondents
choosing it as ‘generally suitable’. Despite the similar Peircean tones of both
(3) and (4), Brier’s definition carries a different type of analysis, being less
abstract than Nöth’s when it comes to talking about relations, but with a
number of assumptions carried by the context of his cybersemiotics. Finally, Bruni’s
definition (5) finds a high number of ‘perfectly suitable’ responses, second only to (2).
This particular definition is still quite close in its sense to (2) and it hinges on the idea of
the cell as the basic semiotic unit, which itself is a principle borrowed from Hoffmeyer
(1996) and Sebeok (2001: 12).

Fig. 1 Suitability of each definition of lower semiotic threshold according to the respondents
Biosemiotic Glossary: Semiotic Threshold 119

In addition to the lower semiotic threshold, we inquired about other concepts of

threshold that could be directly applicable to biosemiotics. Being aware that
semiotics in general, and Eco in particular, postulate the idea of the threshold
not only to split the non-semiotic from the semiotic at the lowest level, but
across different possible realms (as it happens with the higher threshold in
Eco’s work), finding the usage of the concept becomes informative in the
application of different levels, assumed or otherwise, of biosemiotic analysis.
Beyond the lower threshold, we can find different ideas of thresholds that are
of relevance to semiotic research, but that present themselves in a different
package. In that way, we can talk about thresholds correspondent to different
and more specific semiotic abilities, such as symbol production, or even
different constitutions of thresholds altogether, following some sense of conti-
nuity where the semiotic may have a deep reach across levels of complexity. In
particular, the concepts presented to the respondents were:

1. Symbolic threshold: "a kind of threshold effect whereby prior associative learning
strategies, characterized by an incremental narrowing of stimulus response fea-
tures, are replaced by categorical guesses among a few alternatives. The result is a
qualitative shift in performance. The probabilistic nature of the earlier stage is
superseded by alternative testing that has a sort of all-or-none character. This
change in behavior can thus be an indication of the subject's shift in mnemonic
strategy, and hence the transition from indexical to symbolic reference." (Deacon
1997: 98)
2. Other semiotic thresholds: "in the interactions of physical nature giving rise
to relations in the first place already was seeded the possibilities of
objectivity and understanding that emerged actually only much later, when
critical thresholds were crossed – the threshold of zoosemiosis in the case
of objectivity, the threshold of anthroposemiosis in the case of understand-
ing." (Deely 2009: 98–99)
3. "The semiotic hierarchy [...] distinguishes between four (macro) evolutionary
levels in the organization of meaning: life, consciousness, sign function and
language, where each of these, in this order, both rests on the previous level, and
makes possible the attainment of the next." (Zlatev 2009: 169)

The responses for these three alternatives, using again the four different tiers of
suitability described for the previous five questions, can be appreciated in Fig. 2.
While the specific concepts of threshold used here are clearly relevant to the
definition of the lower semiotic threshold in general (as seen in the previous defini-
tions), the specificities of each are met with different levels of approval from the
respondents. Deacon’s symbolic threshold is seen as either perfectly suitable
or generally suitable by 60% of the respondents, whereas both Deely’s and
Zlatev’s notions are met with more resistance, garnering a higher count against
their suitability. The symbolic threshold presents a very interesting counterpoint
to the lower semiotic threshold in that it shows a certain level of acceptance of
a differentiated set of thresholds throughout a semiotic continuum, and it could
be mapped to the notion of ‘higher threshold’ at least with respect to the
complexity of the phenomena explored. Deely’s specific notion may find a
120 C.J. Rodríguez Higuera, K. Kull

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Deacon's symbolic threshold

Perfectly suitable
Generally suitable
Deely's semiotic threshold Somewhat suitable
Not at all suitable

Zlatev's semiotic hierarchy

Fig. 2 Suitability of other semiotic thresholds according to the respondents

lower degree of acceptance because of the specificity of his language,5 concep-

tual arising from unfamiliarity with Deely’s position. In the case of Zlatev’s
definition, moving from thresholds to a hierarchy with sharp selection criteria
may be insightful in both understanding the general research program of
cognitive semiotics, but it may be the case that this difference is something that
biosemioticians are not yet ready to accept. This, however, is a matter that is left
unexplored in this paper.
When asked how, in their own words, the respondents would define the notions of
‘semiotic threshold’ and ‘lower semiotic threshold’, the responses were often
intertwined. Besides the general sense of passing from one point to another conveyed
by the concept of threshold, there are relevant differences in how some biosemioticians
consider what the semiotic threshold is exactly. As such, a pansemiotic view will not
correspond to a more traditional position in biosemiotics. We see that reflected in the
survey responses, where definitions indicate either the need for interpretation, the
reinforcing of habits by organisms, but also the stabilization of interpretative systems
or the boundary between the abiotic world and the biosphere. The conceptual overlap
depends, in any case, on what each definition sets as the point of relevance for the
qualitative movement in passing this threshold. Interestingly, it is Peircean terminology
that becomes prevalent over other alternatives in some cases, and so is the thought that
semiosis evolves. The specific answers, where available, can be found in the supple-
mentary material annexed to this paper.
Concerning the more specific ‘lower semiotic threshold’ and its definition by the
survey respondents, as mentioned earlier, over one fourth of the respondents could not
provide an answer to the question or considered the concept to be synonymous with
‘semiotic threshold’. When a different definition was provided, the concept was given
an arguably less overlapping set of definitions. In some cases, the concept was
considered as meaning the specific biological structure that is necessary for sign action;

5
Deely uses the concept of object to mean “anything cognized or known as such (anything apprehended in
whatever way)” (2003: 8), uniting ‘object’ and ‘significate’ conceptually (2009: 15).
Biosemiotic Glossary: Semiotic Threshold 121

in other cases, the respondents thought of it as the point of emergence of life (and of
semiosis); but some respondents also defined it as the point where signs are less
arbitrary. These distinctions can be better understood in seeing how the idea of the
semiotic threshold itself stems not only from its original definition by Eco, but it is
complemented by Uexküllian and Peircean concepts and informed by the scientific
approach of some biosemioticians. Again, the specific answers are available in the
annex.

General Meaning vs. Meaning in Biosemiotics

The usage of the concept of threshold beyond areas related to carpentry and architecture
is ample, with scientific research using thresholds as limits for specific physicochem-
ical, physiological and even psychological reactions. The idea of thresholds as either
points that when crossed become qualitatively different or as points that trigger certain
actions is certainly a productive one as far as scientific modeling goes. In semiotics
though, we find that general semiotics and biosemiotics may be at odds when it comes
to applying such a concept. The respondents expressed doubts about the actual usage of
the concept of ‘semiotic threshold’ in mainstream discourse, with some citing unfamil-
iarity with other areas besides biosemiotics. However, there is also recognition of the
difference between the application of the concept inside and outside of biosemiotics as
pertaining to communication in general. Yet, the specificity of the concept seemingly
precludes the usage of ‘semiotic threshold’ outside of the academic circle of semiotics,
including all of its branched varieties. The assumption is then that in biosemiotics,
semiotic thresholds differentiate the hierarchies between the semiotic and the non-
semiotic — including the distinction between the living and the non-living —, whereas
the general semiotic discourse avails the usage of ‘semiotic threshold’ sets cultural
boundaries or related to higher cognitive faculties. More than half of the respondents, in
any case, declared not knowing if there was an actual difference between the usage of
‘semiotic threshold’ in biosemiotics and outside of it. This may be due to the fact that
the application of the concept has raised more questions about the lowering of the
threshold than at the levels of higher complexity. In turn, the concept of the higher
threshold of semiotics, following Eco, is more limited within the semiotic literature. A
cursory search on the concept yields few to no results, and it has not been
problematized by semiotic theoreticians. One of the more interesting proposals, how-
ever, comes from Stjernfelt’s multiple thresholds associated to different positions in
philosophy and semiotics, where instead of a ‘lower’ or a ‘higher’ threshold, there is a
“whole ladder of thresholds of increasing biosemiotic complexity” (Stjernfelt 2007:
272). Among those we may find the Searle threshold as linguistic competence, the
Uexküll threshold as zoological features, or the Peirce threshold, comprising all forms
of protosemiotic processes in the universe (Stjernfelt 2007). The scale resembles that of
other researchers such as Koch (1986), and is more expanded than Zlatev’s (2009)
description of hierarchy, but it pertains to the same division of semiotic (and non-
semiotic) capabilities as formalized by different researchers.
It has been constantly repeated both by respondents and ourselves that when
distinguishing between lower and upper thresholds, we make a distinction that pertains
to a certain category of capabilities, with the upper threshold conceived as the
122 C.J. Rodríguez Higuera, K. Kull

separation of what is clearly semiosic, but it is not treated as such. Deacon’s (1997)
symbolic threshold bridges the continuum between lower and upper by making an
intermediate threshold between what is already biological, but towards the develop-
ment of culture.
When asked about the contexts of use for ‘semiotic threshold’, survey respondents
gave answers that traversed through the epistemological and the ontological areas of the
discussion, with some asserting that the concept can be used as a philosophical device
and others as a way to conceptualize points of origin of certain phenomena to which
semiotic properties are ascribed. In addition, when asked whether they thought the
semiotic threshold marks a boundary between ontologically different areas, the re-
sponses were mostly positive, although some skepticism remained in place regarding
ontology and the scope of the processes being assessed through the assumed threshold.

Attempt at Synthesis

Considering the divergence of opinions on the applicability and reach of the concept we
have examined, reaching a synthesis of what is consensually meant by ‘semiotic thresh-
old’ is not a simple task, and we will not provide an ultimate definition for what the
semiotic threshold is supposed to be. There are, however, a number of general notions that
can guide our understanding to make sense of what a ‘semiotic threshold’ may refer to,
how we can better understand the lower threshold of semiotics and the possibility of
establishing different, specific thresholds that refer to particular semiotic processes.
However, the technical usage in semiotics comes indisputably from Eco’s work on
general semiotics, even with all the variety that is presented across the responses from
the survey. The division, however, between its possible applicability within
biosemiotics and in general semiotics is likely more controversial, considering that
some survey respondents see the idea of the semiotic threshold and the lower semiotic
threshold as one and the same. In fact, the concept of the threshold appears to be more
productive as a biosemiotic tool than as a general semiotic tool.
The original division made by Eco between lower and upper thresholds, coupled
with the epistemological boundaries of semiotics, serves as a guiding point for general
semiotics, but its applicability is not something we can take for granted. In defining the
semiotic threshold at its most general, we can surmise its working as a separation
between the semiotic and the non-semiotic. This can work as a way to split the prebiotic
from the properly biological, an important thing to note considering Sebeok’s thesis
about the coextension of life and semiosis (Kull et al. 2008), and that seems to be of the
utmost importance for describing what the semiotic threshold – particularly the lower
threshold – does, notwithstanding the potential ontological reach of the concept. That
is, even if we do not consider the threshold to cover ontologically relevant objects in
our theories, the lower threshold allows us to separate the understanding we have of
what is semiosic and what isn’t. The essentiality of this task to biosemiotics cannot be
understated, considering the guiding point it provides in furthering our understanding
of the questions regarding the origins of semiosis.
The lower threshold of semiotics sets then the rule of thumb for trying to weed out
the presemiotic from the semiotic when it comes to biological processes, but
pinpointing its location depends on a number of factors that cannot be accounted for
by the threshold itself. That is, it depends on what exactly biosemioticians consider as
Biosemiotic Glossary: Semiotic Threshold 123

the minimal conditions for sign action to happen in order to set the threshold at a certain
point, i.e., the fulfillment of requirements such as possessing a membrane to separate
the organism from the environment; as in Hoffmeyer (2009).
Considering the possibility of establishing landmarks different than the one
established by the lower semiotic threshold, an evolutionary (or synechistic)
perspective about semiosis is important in establishing other types of thresholds.
The notion that semiosis can become more complex is what makes the potential
of other thresholds relevant; as we have seen in Deacon (1997), Zlatev (2009)
and Stjernfelt (2007), but it is also present in Koch (1986), Kull (2009) and
Santaella (2001), to name only a few. Depending on how we wish to conceive
the traits that change and evolve within semiosis, the thresholds we propose
will reflect the semiotic features that attain a certain value at a higher level of
complexity. Deacon’s symbolic threshold works in that way, giving relevance to
the evolving complexity of reference and symbolic strategies.
Eco’s ‘upper threshold’ can arguably be considered within the same category,
but it is more categorical in that it does not set a more specific gradient as we
have seen in the previous examples. The upper threshold as defined by Eco is better
explained by Nöth:

Eco’s upper threshold of semiotics is that between the semiotic and various
nonsemiotic points of view. Women [...], tools, and commodities [...] do not
function primarily as signs although they may be studied sub specie semioticae
[...]. When studied as signs, these phenomena belong to the semiotic field. When
studied from other (biological, mechanical, or economic) points of view, they are
beyond the upper threshold of semiotics. (Nöth 1990: 213)

In this respect then, cultural phenomena are certainly semiotic in Eco’s

thought, however, when they are not interpreted as signs, they belong to the
upper threshold. The distinction here lies in that some sciences do not deal with
semantic aspects, but this does not entail that their subjects are devoid of them.
In this, we see that the symbolic threshold lies before Eco’s upper threshold. To
that we must add that culture and nature are not in a real binary opposition
(Kull 1998), reinforcing the point that the upper threshold does not separate
semiosic from non-semiosic phenomena, as it seems to be the more common
claim at the lower threshold. The question whether everything is properly
semiotic after we have crossed the lower threshold will still depend on how we
conceptualize the specifics of our semiotic theories, but the idea of the thresholds
generally helps semioticians parcellate areas of specific research with their specific
methods and backgrounds.

Conclusions

We have tried understanding the specifics of the concept of ‘semiotic threshold’

through both a literature review of the concept and the use of a survey directed towards
the biosemiotic community understood as those professionally engaged in the academic
research of biosemiotic topics.
124 C.J. Rodríguez Higuera, K. Kull

The character of the concept, first coined by Eco’s groundbreaking work on

semiotics, has played quite a defining role within biosemiotics, with the ‘lower
threshold of semiotics’ as an operative tool for defining both the epistemological and
ontological boundaries of sign action at levels of low organismic complexity. Eco is
specific in his usage, but disagreements over the reach of the semiotic have extended
(or lowered) the area of coverage of the semiotic threshold to include phenomena that
would be considered as mechanical signaling by Eco himself.
There is no strong consensus on the way to define the semiotic threshold as it
pertains to biosemiotics, but the principles of biosemiotics assume that the movement
towards interpretation, in a wide manner, is already available for simple organisms.
This helps us then in conceiving that the lower semiotic threshold has to be set against a
backdrop of protosemiotic capabilities, but this will depend on where we actually set
the possibility of sign action in the world. That is, the lower threshold is as useful as the
theories of semiotics that find the need to set it somewhere.
Coming up with specific gradients of sign action is also dependent on the context of
semiotic theories, but generally speaking, biosemioticians are capable of
distinguishing that, behind an evolving conception of semiosis, there can also
be distinguishing features along the levels that can be differentiated through it,
be it in specific referential capabilities or semiospheric integration of meaning-
making features. These differences, in any case, are generally taken as qualita-
tive distinctions between semiotic organisms.
While the concept of ‘semiotic threshold’ seems quite productive and known among
biosemioticians, the treatment of the concept outside of biosemiotics remains
largely unaddressed within the field, revealing a particular gap between the
different branches of semiotics. The received knowledge of the semiotic thresh-
old in biosemiotics is highly dependent on the background of the researcher,
but there seems to be general consensus, at least taking from the survey, that
there is something that cannot be properly called part of the semiotic, and a
point of origin of semiosic capabilities. Definition 2 from the survey gives a
good ground for biosemioticians to debate both the virtues and problems6 of the
threshold concept, and this can be a strong resource for theoretical advances in
biosemiotics. Integrating other paradigms, such as cognitive semiotics, can help
biosemiotics in understanding how reference evolves and where to set potential
thresholds according to their qualitative standing with regards to sign usage in
simple organisms.
Finally, we can say that the idea that we can observe a qualitative change across the
continuum of semiotic capabilities (and their boundaries) has already made an
important impact in biosemiotic thought. The disunity of definitions can be a
productive driver of innovation when it comes to making claims about the require-
ments for talking about what is semiotic, but a deeper engagement with general
semiotics is of the order to make sense of semiotic claims in light of their philo-
sophical commitments.

6
The main problems presented by the semiotic threshold can be summarized with the questions of where to
locate it (or them) and how we can argue for the development of semiotic capabilities from simple to complex
signs (O’Neill 2008: 145–146).
Biosemiotic Glossary: Semiotic Threshold 125

Acknowledgements We thank Donald Favareau for his very kind help and IUT2–44 for supporting this
research.

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