As a “guide for the perplexed”, at least when it comes to semiotics, I will use this thread to collect a budget of links to various papers, blog posts, and list posts that I think have served to clarify the topic in the past.

By way of a first offering, let me recommend the following most excellent paper, which I can say with all due modesty in light of the fact that all of its excellence is accountable to my most excellent co-author:

• Awbrey, J.L., and Awbrey, S.M. (Autumn 1995), “Interpretation as Action : The Risk of Inquiry”, Inquiry : Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 15(1), pp. 40–52.  Archive.  Journal.  Online.