The theme of this work are the climbing scenes shown from the perspective of semiotics. The theme concerns the practices of alpinism and rock climbing. Alpinism is a practice that has officially started with the Michel Gabriel Paccard’s and Jacques Balmat’s ascent of Mont Blanc in 1786. Since then, the history of man’s progression in the high mountains continues. The very first ascent of Everest without the oxygen mask… The rock climbing popularisation is also speeding up.
The science of semiotics gives access to a language of practices of climbing and shows a way to a new perspective of the valorisation of this practice and different forms of climbers’ individual appropriation of a climbing scene in the high mountains or in the crag.
This work consists of a study of two sub-corpuses: texts related to alpinism; and texts, especially mediatised supports of blogs and interviews treating the theme of sport climbing. Parting from a stereotyped point of view on the resemblances of the two practices which are often confounded and passing by a section that shows the evolution and the passage from alpinism to sport climbing, the study of climbing and the modalities from a semiotic point of view analyses parts of activities approaching also the microanalysis of the movements present in the activity. The study shows that the rock climbing is no longer just an extension of alpinism but is a discipline where climbing is regarded as a goal in itself. The study has also shown that the two practices have a similar valorisation of ethics, even though a passion such as fear for example, normally considered as analogue, can no longer be felt in the same way.
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