As ontologias na perspectiva da teoria do conceito e da semiótica discursiva: aspectos teórico-conceituais

Abstract

Theoretical study about ontologies, relating its structure (composed of classes, properties and instances) with the theoretical tools of Ingetraut Dahlberg’s Concept Theory and Discursive Semiotics. The research started from the premise that ontologies can have in Concept Theory a safe basis to be constructed, so that the information is understood by a semantic perspective. However, it was hypothesized that, if the ontologies were based on the theoretical tool of Discursive Semiotics, it would be possible to obtain a higher theoretical subsidy and, consequently, to enable the construction of more efficient ontologies that would allow an improvement both in the use of the ontologies for knowledge representation and for the interoperability between different systems, considering that the information approach as discourse acts on the basis of the phenomenon of signification, that is, it is more in depth than the semantic approach through which ontologies are currently constructed. Thus, we tried to answer the following question: how can Discourse Semiotics contribute to the understanding and construction of ontologies? In view of this, the bibliographic and descriptive research was carried out in four phases: the first one, a bibliographical review; the second one, whose objective was to understand how the Concept Theory relates to the structure and construction of the ontologies and how this same structure can be adapted to the concepts brought by Discursive Semiotics; the third, with the development of two ontologies, one based on Concept Theory and another based on Semiotics; and the fourth, comparing the two theoretical approaches and the two ontologies, trying to highlight the differences and similarities between them. Finally, it was concluded that the hypothesis formulated is valid, but with some reservations: the ontologies based on Discursive Semiotics, although can be constructed and used, features elements of arbitrary and uncommon naming, so that they may not completely obey the criteria that an ontology must meet (complicating ontology reuse, for example). Nevertheless, Semiotics certainly contributes to a better understanding of these organizational systems in their structure and in what concerns the concepts that are inserted in them.