Approaches to a digital Semiotics: Between computer-aided Semiotics and Semiotics as the Metadiscipline of digital Literary Science

From a literary studies point of view, the paper approaches the potential of digital semiotics from two angles: Based on the assumption of basic similarities between semiotic and computer-assisted methods (sign-theoretical approach, tendency towards model-building), it on the one hand examines the potentials and constrains of the computer-assisted methods for semiotic approaches to literary texts. Here, both convergences and challenges will be addressed in a sign-theoretical perspective. On the other hand, semiotics is regarded as a meta-discipline that is able to bridge the gap between digital and analogue methods and practices in literary studies.