O princípio da garantia semântica e os estudos da linguagem

Abstract

Information and knowledge are inextricably linked to the conditions of language manifestation. In Knowledge Organization (KO), this precept implies a series of possibilities in which reflections can be made concerning information and knowledge for the purposes of organization. In this context, attention is drawn to the semantic validation that is manifested in the dimension of language, conferring representativeness in relation to the domain in which it is embedded. This legitimizes documentary products and processes. This semantic order, underlying a Knowledge Organization System (KOS), can be identified in the concept of the warrant on which the system is based (BEGHTOL, 1986). In this sense, the semantic warrant is considered the principle applied to the construction, development and evaluation of KOS to justify and validate meanings. It guides the developer to verify the needs for inclusions, exclusions and any type of shaping of classes and concepts of the terminological structure of KOS depending on the meaning and use of these classes and concepts for a given purpose or audience. Concerning this situation, an arena of reflection was established in order to investigate the notion of warrant, the founding elements of this principle and its unfolding and the resulting inflections of the actions of information in the current socio-technical panorama. For this purpose, the theoretical legacy of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) was used. Two philosophers of language who, at different times and in different contexts, conceived of ideas that would transform the notions of language and meaning. As a strategy for the reading and analysis of philosophical texts, they eschewed the philosophical methodology to illuminate the interpretative background of research. It was deduced that, while their initial proposal was linked to a requirement for rules and the level efficiency related to measurements of the frequency of words in documents, today the semantic warrant principle covers a series of aspects and precepts related to the formation of meaning in KOS, capable of orienting them in their projection, development and evaluation. In the perspectives of warrant, considering the chronology in which each was proposed in the KO, it can be seen that from the most classical (literary warrant) to the most contemporary, there has been a shift from a purely normative concern to one of ethics, behavior and awareness. This is reflected in the cultural, phenomenological, autopoietic, etc. evoked to guarantee useful meanings in the context of KOS. It can be concluded that the semantic warrant principle is a response to the impulse to create, expose or impose one or several visions of the world from the revelation of meanings established by language in action. The idea of warrant in KO is thus understood in the argument in favor of the existence of facts and phenomena of reality that are capable of being assigned a meaning. The establishment of meaning through/in language certifies the permanent commitment that the warrant triggers in KOS.