“Action-Metaphor”: The Performatic Sources of Human Meaning-Making

Since the claim of this journal issue points out a potential relationship between the (theatrical) notion of “performance” and the notion of “semiotic practices”, rather than to the semiotic notion of “performance” as such, an intended side effect of the article is to supply an indirect answer to the reason of such a choice. After having briefly introduced the paradigm shift from theatre studies to performance studies having taken place over the last five decades or so, I attempt to outline the large theoretical framework in which this shift occurred, by adding two cognitive-semiotic layers to the conventional dyad of orality-literacy — that is, “performativity” and “electracy”. In the last section, I focus on cognitive neuroscientist Merlin Donald’s theory of three stages in the evolution of the human mind in order to explain the notion of “action-metaphor” as the “performatic” and non-linguistic source of human meaning-making processes.