Linguistic praxis as institution and individuation between semiotic imagination, normative schemes and styles

In this article we will dwell upon the relation between linguistic praxis and normative schemes with a particular focus on the concept of institution and on the role of semiotic imagination. We consider the importance of the theoretical link between the individual moments of actual use of language and the organizational frames in which they are inscribed. The theoretical framework is a semiotic anthropology. One of the most central issues for semiotic anthropology consists in understanding the nature of subjective experience as perception and praxis in its deep relation with the degrees of normativity at work in semiotic perception. We will propose a comparison between the gestural model of language praxis in Merleau-Ponty’s perspective and the theory of the social imaginary of the philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis. The institution is revealed as a social imaginary creation, where the body of the individual subject, with its potential of semantic meaning, is the centre of creation device. Thus, following Descombes’s interpretation, the semiotic institutions have to be considered as dynamic devices which act as an intermediary between singular participation in community life and the set of material and immaterial rules and roles binding cultural perception and symbolic forms