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A Peircean Semiotic Approach to Cultural Pedagogy: Wayang Topeng Jatiduwur as an Indigenous Learning System
http://doi.org/10.332.34/SSR.23.10
Yulianah Prihatin
Universitas Hasyim Asy’ari Tebuireng Jombang, Indonesia
yulianahprihatin@unhasy.ac.id
Mu’minin
Universitas PGRI Jombang, Indonesia
mukminin.stkipjb@gmail.com
Edwin Hari Agus Prastyo
Universitas Hasyim Asy’ari Tebuireng Jombang, Indonesia
edwin@example.com
Abstract
In the face of an increasingly homogenized and digitized educational paradigm, this study reconsiders indigenous modes of learning through the semiotic lens of Charles Sanders Peirce. Focusing on Wayang Topeng Jatiduwur—a traditional masked performance from Jombang, East Java—the research explores how meaning, ethical consciousness, and cultural knowledge are produced through performative sign processes. Employing a qualitative semiotic analysis of textual, visual, and musical materials, the study examines the interaction of icons, indexes, and symbols within the ritual context of performance. The findings reveal that Wayang Topeng Jatiduwur functions as a living pedagogical system wherein gestures, masks, and rhythms mediate moral reflection and social learning. Through Peirce’s triadic model, the performance enacts a participatory form of education grounded in the Javanese epistemic triad of cipta–rasa–karsa (thought–feeling–will). This indigenous semiotic pedagogy dissolves the boundaries between cognition and embodiment, art and ethics, suggesting that learning emerges through semiosis—an ongoing interpretive engagement with cultural signs. The study contributes to the decolonial rethinking of education by positioning indigenous semiotic systems as vital frameworks for moral imagination and communal knowledge in the modern world.
Keywords: Peircean semiotics; indigenous pedagogy; Wayang Topeng Jatiduwur, cultural learning; decolonial education.