Semiotic Analysis of Interpretation's Components And Concept Creation for Use in Ontology Construction

One of the problems of ontology  used with the aim of meaningful retrieval in the web and information systems is lack of attention to the processes of meaning formation in the human mind. Ontology has a reference structure. It tries to retrieve the meaning only by establishing relations among concepts. However, ontology does not pay attention to the issue of cognition and processes such as interpretation and formation of concepts in mind. The purpose of this study is to focus on the interpretation component of Peirce’s sign model to identify the components affecting the interpretation of various people from the Shiate Ashura event as an object of Peirce’s sign model for use in ontologies..

This qualitative research has two steps. In the first step, the Instagram’s personal pages of five groups of people (people whose pages had high number of followers and visitors, praisers, creators of Ashura work, ordinary people and people who have a different view of Ashura) were chosen identified and e analyzed using qualitative content analysis method. In the second step, 10 creators of Ashura works in painting, literature, calligraphy, film and caricature were selected. Their lived experiencs relted to creating works were collected and analyzed using the phenomenological method and semi-structured interview tool.

29 main categories and 292 sub-categories were identified and extracted from the qualitative content analysis of 6339 comments of Instagram pages in the first step, and 8 main categories and 47 sub-categories from the analysis of interviews of Ashura creators in the second step.

Individuals interpretations of an event (object), the formation of concept and mental patterns depend on three worlds (personal world, social world, and technology world) shape their experiences and mental preconceptions as well as the context in which the individual is located. The concept is context-oriented, and the interpretation does not depend on the individual interpreter alone, but also on the social context. Personal preferences is not the only way to interpret the signs. It is not the main determining factor in  forming semantic systems such as ontologies. The context, social rules as well as habits limit the interpretation. Accordingly, the use of reference systems and rules of logic,  and the use of artificial intelligence and computer science tools alone cannot help to represent meaning in the ontology. Rather, individual characteristics, contexts, mental presuppositions, and components existing in personal, society, and technology worlds affect the shaping of concepts and constructing meaning and paying attention to them in ontology. It is especially essential in the a multifaceted  context oriented like Ashura.