The Semiotics of Cooperation

Abstract

In this article, we suggest that in starting from dialogical, interactive studies of human discourse, we can uncover properties of cooperation that have otherwise been missed or have remained underappreciated by scholars trying to account for cooperation from an evolutionary point of view or from the point of view of its mental representation (i.e., by means of collective intentions or goals). Before uncovering these properties, we argue that a distinction must be drawn between intersubjectivity, understood as an ever-present empathic sensitivity to others, and intersubjective attunement, the process of adjusting one's actions to the ever-changing contextual conditions of interaction. It is by attending to intersubjective attunement that cooperative activities are shown to be inherently vulnerable to breach, failure, and all kinds of interactional glitches, while also being open to modifications, e.g., repairs, that allow for their successful completion. Unpacking these conditions for cooperation allows us to reveal five general properties that guide its semiotic constitution, namely, sensorial access, distributed intentionality, fluctuation of attention, improvisation, and negotiable role ascription. Attention to the semiotics of cooperation across communities and within particular activities can add a sixth general property, namely, variability in how and the extent to which cooperation is acknowledged. We introduce the term cryptocooperation to describe joint activities where the cooperative role by certain participants is underrecognized and thereby remains hidden.