History and identity

SIGNATA was founded in 2010 and has its headquarters at the Center of Semiotics and Rhetorics of the University of Liège. The journal also claims an international anchorage: its leading team is composed of semioticians from Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Italy. It was created to meet the need for an inventory, a structuring and a testing of contemporary research in semiotics, with no faction bias nor geographical boundaries. It is peer-reviewed and publishes original papers, in French and in English.

Between 2010 and 2017, the journal published eight thematic dossiers, in paper format only, at the Presses universitaires de Liège and with the financial support of the F.R.S.-FNRS (Belgium) and of the University of Luxembourg. In 2017, it joined the OpenEdition Journals digital platform (formerly Revues.org). Starting in 2019, it considered transitioning towards full-text, online-only free distribution. In 2020, Signata joined the OpenEdition Freemium Journals bundle and was subsequently indexed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) database. Finally, it was integrated into the SCOPUS® bibliographic database. Signata is recognized as an international journal by the academic institutions of several countries (notably qualifying in France and being recognized by Italy’s ANVUR as a “Fascia A” journal).

Its scope is to present a global disciplinary project and to play an unifying role, with a constant concern about the quality and the scientific rigour of the publications. The choice to publish thematic issues meets the goal of a periodical cartography of the discipline, as well in its current trends than in its historical ones.

Scientific project

The title Signata condenses two main questions on the path taken by semiotics: its origin as a science of signs — cf. indiciality, indexicality — and its development as a way of looking at the act of marking and tracing (the Latin verb signare means both tracing and indicating). Signata therefore refers simultaneously to traces as well as to practices of tracing meaning.

The journal does not favour any particular theory, school or object of study: its goal is to nurture semiotics as a disciplinary project. We see semiotics as a discipline demanding strong epistemological foundations. We recognize at the same time that its methodology has developed along multiple paths thanks to its constant dialogue with sister disciplines such as linguistics, rhetoric, the philosophy of language, the cognitive sciences, aesthetics, sociology, anthropology and the information and communication sciences.

The journal aims on the one hand to identify the main questions currently explored by the language sciences, and on the other, to structure lines of internationally recognized semiotic research. Without worrying about geographical borders, Signata focuses particular attention on recent discussions about the world of meaning and processes of signification. At the same time, it proposes to structure these reflections around a set of key concepts and problems, which each issue highlights in such a way as to present a global disciplinary project.

Editorial policies

SIGNATA is managed by seven Chief Editors and an Editorial Board, which propose and arbitrate the trends of the issues. As the project of the journal demands it, the Advisory Board is twofold: on the one hand a team of major figures of the semiotic research field worldwilde (France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Danemark, Argentine, Brasil, Canada, United States, Iran, Mexico, …), on the other hand an Interdisciplinary International Advisory Board.

Each issue consists of a themed feature and « Varia » papers. All papers must be previously unpublished, and written in French or in English.

SIGNATA also proposes chronicles which make a periodical inventory of the main scientific activities of the research centers in semiotic worldwide.

The themed features is edited either by the Chief Editors, or by Guest Editors. Papers for themed features are requested by the editors; however themes for issues are publically announced on the website and everyone is free to submit a paper that fits with the chosen theme.

Peer-Review Process

Submissions are to be sent electronically to the secretary of the journal’s management board, at the following address: signata.annales[at]gmail.com

The journal accepts either papers where the methodological framework is explicitly semiotic or papers where the main topic is semiotics as a discipline.

Based on these two criteria, the Editorial Secretary will provide an answer regarding the submission’s eligibility within two weeks. This response also serves as an acknowledgment of the submission’s receipt.

Once received, the submitted article is subject to a double-blind evaluation, conducted by one or multiple specialists of the topic—this also applies to authors invited by the Editorial Board or by an issue director, irrespective of the manner by which they were invited. The Editorial Board is apprised of the evaluation and produces a written synthesis of the evaluators’ comments to be sent to the author. The Editorial Secretary undertakes to send the comments and their synthesis to the authors within two months after receiving the paper.

The Editorial Board’s decision may be of three kinds: 1) accepted without modifications; 2) accepted with modifications; 3) refused. In case 1), the author’s text is processed for edition; in case 2), the author is required to take the comments received into account and to submit his or her revised version. This revised version will then be evaluated. In case 3), the journal will not receive a revised version.

The guidelines for the reviews are as follows:

General Appreciation

• Relevance of the subject with the special issue

• Originality in dealing with the subject

• Importance of the conclusions

• Theoretical scope

Research Method

• Relevance of the methodology for the object of study

• Originality of the data treated

• Rigor in how the data was treated

Argumentation / discussion

• Quality of the interpretation of the data

• Logic and structure of the argumentation

• Degree of advanced ideas

• Links with the specialized literature on the subject

Presentation

• Overall structure of the article

• Clarity and concision of the style

• Language quality

• Respect for bibliographical norms

Copyright

Generally, copyright and intellectual property legislation applies to the entirety of this journal.

In particular:

• For strictly private use, the reproduction of the contents of all or part of this journal is authorized.

• The authors transfer all reproduction and representation rights related to their article.

• These may be exploited by the publisher or by an authorized third party or transferee during the whole term of the literary copyright, in all countries and all languages, in the context of the journal issue in which the article is published, be it in print format, using digital media or online.

• In the event where the authors would wish to upload their article to an institutional website (Orbi, HAL, etc.) or to websites such as Academia.edu or ResearchGate, they commit to do so using the version published by the Publisher, while clearly indicating the journal’s reference and providing a link to the journal’s website where said article is published.

• In the context of a communication, edition or other act of professional use, only short quotations are authorized, provided that the source is mentioned by a link to the page cited (or, failing that, to the home page) or, in the case of reproduction on a physical medium, by mentioning the author and the URL address of the page cited.

Any other reproduction or representation of the contents of the journal in whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, must receive prior authorization. For any inquiry regarding these matters, please contact the Presses Universitaires de Liège, Place du XX Août n° 7, 4000 Liège (Belgium).