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Friday, July 8, 2011

Segni griceiani -- grisotto

Luigi Speranza

Widely understood as the primary concept of semiotics, the concept of a "sign" is easy to understand informally, building on the word's everyday usage.

Looking for a common denominator, we might say, following a mediaeval formula, that

"a sign is something that stands for something else."

This trivial definition, however, is quickly shown to be circular.

One of the main challenges of semiotics is to develop a formal definition of "sign" (Latin 'segnum', Italian 'segno') that is informative and
also intuitively satisfying.

Various doctrines of semiotics attempt to meet this challenge differently and
are built from fundamentally contrasted and, in some
casese, ven irreconcilable notions of sign.

A survey of approaches to understanding the word sign by exemplification
or by definition must have as its first
priority a display of the problems rather than a synthesis
of their solutions.

In ordinary language, a number of nouns and
verbs are more or less synonymous with "sign" and, in
their effects, with sign functions.

For example, the
terms

symbol,

name,

signal,

and representation

and the
functions

"to signify,"
"to mean,"
"to refer to,"
and
"to indicate."

While particular academic theories specialize
their usage of some or all of these terms, there
is no common agreement in scholarly discourse that
differentiates them systematically.

The fundamental
problem of the concept of sign does not lie in distinguishing
these terms from each other but in specifying
what, if anything, they have in common.

Therefore, we can take "sign" in what follows
to represent the class of words with which it is extensively
synonymous.

There is certainly no consensus that a single unified
idea of sign makes good sense (even among
philosophers who do not denigrate general abstract
concepts as a matter of course).

At one extreme,
Charles Ogden and lvor Richards's study (1923) concludes
that the idea encompasses at least sixteen independent
notions.

On the other hand, much of
Charles Sanders Peirce's work aims at elucidating a
core of common principles among the most diverse
types of sign.

The difference represented by these extreme
views is fundamental but not a point of very
active academic controversy at present, as their proponents
align with separate schools (and thus publish
in different iournals and attend different meetings).

An interest in semiotics as a declared affiliation
tends to connote a sympathy for a unified concept.

The technical usage of "sign" in semiotics is generally
more comprehensive than the popular usage.

In
scholarly writing, the term sign might include, for example,

a word

a sentence,

a mark on paper that represents a word

a mark on paper that represents a sentence or sentences,

a computer program
(hardwired, electronically recorded, or written out),

a picture,

a diagramme,

a graph,

a chemical formula

a physical formula

fingerprints,

an idea

a concept,

a mental image,

a sensation,

money,

a posture and

a gesture,

a manner

a custom,

a costume,

a rule

a value,

the orienting
dance of the honeybee,

an avian display,

fishing
lures,

DNA,

an object made of other signs (including
poetry and fiction, even if not considered to "stand
for something else")

and also nonrepresentational
objects (perhaps in music or mathematics) that have
types of structure characteristic of other signs.

Furthermore,
while all these items affiliate with the idea
of sign in that their primary functions concem
knowledge, information, or communication, nearly
any object can possess signification secondarily by
context or aesthetic design:

architecture

an automobile

and home furnishings, and any gift or souvenir,

for example.

By contrast, a general characteristic of common
usage is to elide the concept of sign where its circumstances
are the most frequent and transparent.

Thus, in commonplace, naive usage, we speak of

"sign language"

for the deaf but do not use that term
for routine oral speech, as the semiotician does.

In
popular parlance, a totem pole is a sign, but the words
totem ot pole or totem pole (all of which are signs from
the technical standpoint of semiotics) are not.

One
speaks of an addition sign or a square-root sign but
not of. 2 as a "two sign."

Asked to name a half dozen
of the most usual traffic signs, an unprompted respondent
is unlikely to include in his or her list the
yellow lines often painted in the middle of the road.

The inconsistencies of common speech in this regard
are easy to grasp, and this disposition toward generalization
is itself initial evidence of a coherent concept
beneath the surface of common usage.

Nevertheless, this coherent concept is not easy to
elicit.

Usages such as English "sign" have parallels
but certainly not exact homologues in other languages
(for example, English uses sign and French
uses "enseigne")

Standard dictionary definitions are
inere compilations, listing several different "senses" (alleged) of
the word.

The technical approach emerges from an
attempt to get at the unity.

The scholastic

"dictum"

might introduce some recurrent
problems in the formal elaboration of the
concept of sign.

In the definition

"aliquid [stat] pro
aliquo"

("something [that stands] for something
else"), the preposition is evasive.

The notion of substitution
is frequently invoked, and some signs can
be understood this way.

For example, the ritual
bread and wine of Catholic communion, which take
the place of the flesh and blood of Christ.

Similarly,
the approval of a blueprint partially substitutes for
the inspection of a house.

But in general, a sign is
not automatically permitted to substitute for its object (signatum, segnato), via the signans, segnante.

In most cases, "pro" simply means "means" or
"represents" and thus renders the definition circular.

A more elaborate definition that is often attributed
to Augustine of Hippo but is likely older, explains
the sign as

"something which besides manifesting
itself to the senses also indicates to the mind
something beyond itself."

The insufficiencies of this
definition illustrate further theoretical watersheds in
the conception of sign.

One problem here is the status
of thoughts, ideas, mental images, and concepts
as signs.

These entities certainly partake of a representational
function but do not manifest themselves
to the senses, at least in our usual frame of reference.

The deep circularity of this definition resides in its
recourse to a presupposed notion of mind, for the
idea of mind seems impossible to establish without
referring to signs, if not literally, then by invoking a
collection of concepts (images, knowledge, etc.) that
presuppose an idea of representation like that of
signs.

Furthermore, the term "indicates" is ambiguous
here.

Certainly, physical transportation ("brings to
mind") is not proposed.

We might interpret indicates
as "to cause a transfer of attention."

The formula then
identifies signs by their control of a succession of
thoughts or images.

However, the thought control
envisioned is typically learned, not innate, being embodied
in a rule (e.g., a definition) that is itself another
sign or sign complex, effective only insofar as
it asserts meaning.

Analyzed this way, "indicates" is
merely another synonym for means or signifies (Latin, "signat" -- cfr. Italian 'segnare') and
again the definition is ultimately circular.

In the twentieth century, doctrinal progress in developing
the concept of sign has hinged on two points:

establishing that a sign is a relation,

and

taking
account of the asymmetry or nonequivalence of
the related entities.

With regard to the relational conception
of the sign, stimulus for work in very different
directions emerged in linguistics, mathematical
logic, and philosophy.

Ferdinand de Saussure's general linguistics
broached the possibility of describing sign systems as
autonomous structures.

In his scheme and in its further
elaborations by others the sign can be understood
as a correlation of differences.

Saussure's terms
signifie and signifiant, for which the awkward English
equivalents

"signifier"

and

"signified"

are now consensually
employed, indicate two faces of the sign.

In the
case of a word, for example, the signifier is a sound
structure determined not by the immediate sound of
a particular pronunciation in a naive material sense
but by its identifying features of similarity to and difference
from other sound structures in its language.

The signified is a comparable meaning complex, determined
not by the immediate burden of a particular usage but again by patterns of equivalence and
contrast the one word has established with other
words in its language.

In Louis Hjelmslev's theoretical
system, which pursues the direction set by Saussure,
the key corresponding terms (though they take
a different nuance) are

expression

for the signifier and
content for the signified.

Hjelmslev's Prolegomena to a
Theory of Language (1943), with its elegant and dramatic
axiomatic method, signaled the prospect of a
description of signs that makes no reference to an external
context or "real world".

The sign is accounted
for solely as a relation inside an autonomous system.

The mode of thought arising in this vein, which finds
sympathy in economics and sociology as well as in
linguistics, gave rise to structuralism.

The opposite tack in analyzing the concept of sign
is to take its dependence on a real context of use as
its central fact.

In this perspective, which inspired an
elaborate Latin language philosophical development
as well as much contemporary investigation, the
point of departure is the nonequivalence of a designated
obiect with the image of it conveyed by its sign.

There are many ways to picture this nonequivalence
according to the relative roles ascribed to mental and
nonmental elements of the total sign situation.

The scholastic terms

"signum",
"signatum",
"signans"
and
"designatum"
form a basic scheme that differentiates a signifier
("signum", italian 'segno'), a signified concept (signatum, italian, 'segnato'), and a particular
entity to which the concept is ascribed by the
sign (designatum).

Gottlob Frege invented a method of investigating
the relationships in such a triangle through mathematical
modeling.

His terms for the three parts of the
sign are

Zeichen -- cognate with English 'token' -- and 'teach'.
Sinn, -- cognate with 'sensus' --
and Bedeutung -- 'deut' cognate.

His study proceeded
through a meticulous and mathematically
strict analysis of synonymy and in a novel manner
linked the logic of representation to truth relations.

His work deeply influenced Rudolf Carnap and
Bertrand Russell, among others, and set directions in
analytical philosophy.

However, the positivist thrust
of these researches has tended to deflect effort and
attention from a development of a broad conception
of sign in favor of a very critical examination of particular
mathematical or linguistic cases in which a
global sense of sign is not at issue.

With respect to the analysis of sign vis-i-vis a real
world rather than systemic (e.g., linguistic) context,
Peirce left the richest legacy of ideas, though the degree
to which he made his ideas coherent is a matter
of controversy.

His work was propelled by the at least
partially conflicting energies of his genius for practical
science, logical abstraction, and the analysis of introspective
experience.

In evidence of this, his writings
include some three dozen different definitions of
sign.

It is not always clear which of these are the drafts
and which are more developed.

His prosaic description
of the sign as

"something which stands for something
to somebody in some respect or capacity"

seems
scarcely related to his definition,

"A sign or representamen,
is a first which stands in such a genuine triadic relation to a second, called its object, as to be capable of determining a third, called its interpretant, to
assume the same triadic relation to its Obiect in which
it stands itself to the same Obiect."

The latter definition presumes an understanding
of Peirce's system of phenomenological and ontological
categories, for which his theory of semiotics
was the linchpin linking them to epistemology.

In
Peirce's philosophy, the category of sign is implicated
in all aspects of the universe that manifest pattern or
continuity.

An implication of his definition of the
sign that proves fundamental to the whole of his system
is that the defining characteristic of signs is their
capacity to determine additional signs.

In this tripartite
scheme, the different possible relations among
the three components of the sign generate an extensive
system of sign taxonomy.

The subsequent classification
of signs as

index
icon
symbol

according to the relationship between the representamen
and the object has been widely adopted in
semiotic literature.

Peirce demonstrated to his own
satisfaction that four-, five- and higher-part relations
could be generated from three-part relations but not
from two-part relations.

In consequence, he was interested
in construing the sign formally only as characterized
by three-part relations.

The first of his definitions
quoted above has four terms, not three, so
this alerts us that the second formula is the building
block of a.complexr ather than a full description.

His
own elaborations which allow for (as a minimum)
two aspectso f the obiect and three of the interpretant,
follow suit.

For Peirce, it was of paramount importance to
maintain the reality of both the mental and extramental
worlds, and he relied on his theory of semi
oticst o connectt hem, suggestingth at everys ignw as
a bit of mind.

The decades following his work witnessed
a widespread interest in accounting for the
world without reference to mentality and in reducing
mind to behavior.

Charles Morris developed a
semiotic philosophy that, while founded on Peirce's
work, transformedit into a behavioristm odel.

His explanation
of the sign process( 1964)r evealsh is commitment
to excluding any entailment of mentality in
how he formulates a notion of sign in terms of stimulus
and response.

As he later describedit , "semiosis
(or sign process) is regarded as a five-term relation-

V w, x, y, z-in which v sets up in w the disposition
to react in a certain kind of way, x, to a certain kind
of object, y (not then acting as a stimulus), under certain
conditions, z"

1971, pp. 4Ol-4O2

While Morris's intention is to achieve greater precision, the result
is the opposite, with a loss of both clarity of
principle and motivation.

The adiective "certain" hides
all the real problems.

R ussell, who was strongly attracted
to this mode of theorizing and formulated a
very similar definition, was nevertheless aware of its
inadequacy.

The idea of sign seems to lose its essential
function and its boundaries when its role in establishing
the reality of mind is denied.

Aside from the central question of whether or not
sign can be construed as a unified, nontrivial category
and aside from malor differences of theoretical
allegiance to Saussurean, Peircean, behavioral, and
other traditions of thought, the literature of semiotics
expresses other particular disagreements about the
appropriate way to construct the idea of sign.

These
differences are indicated here by example but not
comprehensively.

The notion of sign is regarded by
some authors as virtually limitless in scope, while
other restrict their formal use of the term to signs as
used in human thought, and still others to siSns that
have a distinctly arbitrary or conventional component.

The hierarchical range of sign is also an issue:

we might speak of a word, a sentence, a paragraph,
a book, or a whole culture as a sign, or we might restrict
the term to a portion of that series.

At one end
of the scale, for the smallest components, such as the
distinctive features of linguistic phonemes, Hjelmslev
proposed the term figurae, distinguishing these elements
as less than full-fledged signs because they are
incapable of independent reference.

The opposing
view (advanced by Roman Jakobson, among others)
is that these least components are still signs and refer
to "difference."

At the other end of the scale,
where large sign complexes are involved, the term
text is frequently preferred, but recent discourse, especially
in literary criticism, has tended to oppose
text to sign on the basis of polysemy rather than material
size, so that a single word might be viewed as
a text when its usage is sufficiently charged with multidimensional
reference.

The problem of typology,
though not a particular focus of current debate, is another
for which no consensual resolution has gained
sway, and it is complicated by our increasing sensitivity
to differences among media and sensory channels.

Finally, the place of the concept of sign within
the whole doctrinal apparatus of semiotics is not a
matter of universal agreement.

Many see it as a less central
fulcrum than sign function, semiosis, or text.

Does semiotic theory even require a definition of
sign?

It is a commonplace that sciences require primitive
terms that they do not define.

Physics does not
define matter, nor biology life, nor psychology mind.

But two obiections arise immediately to offering
semiotics this easy way out.

First, the philosophies of
the other sciences do tackle thesei ssues,a nd semiotics
is a philosophical field with comparable responsibilities.

Second,i n the experimentals ciences
there are always explicit principles of interpretation
that permit research to determine whether or not its
undefined objects are present or absent.

The biologist
or physicist knows how to tell if Iife or matter is
present.

In the case of semiotics, such a test returns
us to the problem of definition and the ongoing
dialectic of exemplification and delineation that
achievesn o axiomaticb asis.

[Seea lso

A ugustineo f Hippo;
Frege;
H jelmslev;
M edieval
Semiotics;
P eirce;
S aussure
S; emiosis,
S emiotic

Terminology; cnd Signification.l

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carnap, R. Introductiont o SemanticsC. ambridge,M ass:H arvard
University Prcss, 1942.

Cassirer, E. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. 3 vols. New
Haven:Y aleU niversityP ress1, 953-1957.

Clarke, D. 5., Jr. Sourceos f SemioticR: eadingsw ith Commentariesf
tom Antiquity to theP rcsentC. arbondale,I ll.: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1990.

Deely,J ., B. Williams, and F. E. Kruse,e ds.F rontiersin Semiofics.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

Lidov, D. Elements of Semiotics. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press1, 996.

Manetti, G. Theories of the Sign in Classica Antiquity. Ttanslated
by C. fuchardson.
Bloomington: Indiana University
Press1, 993.

Morris, C. W. Significationa nd SignificanceA: Studyo f the Relationso
f Signsa nd ValuesC. ambridge,M ass.:M IT Press,
1964.

Morris, C. W. Witings on the General Theory of Signs. The
Hague: Mouton, 1971.

Ogden, C. K., and I. A. Richards. The Meaning of Meaning
(1923). New York: Harcourt, 1946.

Russell, B. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. New York:
W W. Norton, 1940.

Sebeok, T. A. Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs. Lisse,
NetherlandsP: eterd e RidderP ress1, 976.

David Lidov.

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