Person

Professor emeritus of semiotics at Lund University, I initiated the Semiotics Seminar in 1986 and the Centre for cognitive semiotics in 2009. I created the doctorate in semiotics in 1998 which we later turned into cognitive semiotics.

I was president of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies 1992-2012, as well as Secretary General of the International Association for Visual Semiotics from 2001 and its president from 2015. I was one of the initiators of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics.

I hold a doctorate in general linguistics from Lund, and a doctorate in semiotics from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Between 1978 and 1981, I dedicated myself to the semiotics of gesture in Paris, and between 1981 and 1982, I conducted research in Mayan linguistics and semiotics in Mexico. Since my return to Lund, in 1982, I have mainly been concerned with pictorial and cultural semiotics, as well as the epistemology of (cognitive) semiotics.