Semiotics for Beginners

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~chazelle/courses/BIB/semio2.htm

Daniel Chandler

Signs

We seem as a species to be driven by a desire to make meanings: above all, we are surely Homo significans - meaning-makers. Distinctively, we make meanings through our creation and interpretation of 'signs'. Indeed, according to Peirce, 'we think only in signs' (Peirce 1931-58, 2.302). Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning. 'Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign', declares Peirce (Peirce 1931-58, 2.172). Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as 'signifying' something - referring to or standing for something other than itself. We interpret things as signs largely unconsciously by relating them to familiar systems of conventions. It is this meaningful use of signs which is at the heart of the concerns of semiotics.

The two dominant models of what constitutes a sign are those of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. These will be discussed in turn.

Saussure offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign. He defined a sign as being composed of:

a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes; and the 'signified' (signifi�) - the concept it represents. The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified (Saussure 1983, 67; Saussure 1974, 67). The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as 'signification', and this is represented in the Saussurean diagram by the arrows. The horizontal line marking the two elements of the sign is referred to as 'the bar'.

If we take a linguistic example, the word 'Open' (when it is invested with meaning by someone who encounters it on a shop doorway) is a sign consisting of:

a signifier: the word open; a signified concept: that the shop is open for business.

A sign must have both a signifier and a signified. You cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified (Saussure 1983, 101; Saussure 1974, 102-103). A sign is a recognizable combination of a signifier with a particular signified. The same signifier (the word 'open') could stand for a different signified (and thus be a different sign) if it were on a push-button inside a lift ('push to open door'). Similarly, many signifiers could stand for the concept 'open' (for instance, on top of a packing carton, a small outline of a box with an open flap for 'open this end') - again, with each unique pairing constituting a different sign.

Nowadays, whilst the basic 'Saussurean' model is commonly adopted, it tends to be a more materialistic model than that of Saussure himself. The signifier is now commonly interpreted as the material (or physical) form of the sign - it is something which can be seen, heard, touched, smelt or tasted. For Saussure, both the signifier and the signified were purely 'psychological' (Saussure 1983, 12, 14-15, 66; Saussure 1974, 12, 15, 65-66). Both were form rather than substance:

A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and a sound pattern. The sound pattern is not actually a sound; for a sound is something physical. A sound pattern is the hearer's psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his senses. This sound pattern may be called a 'material' element only in that it is the representation of our sensory impressions. The sound pattern may thus be distinguished from the other element associated with it in a linguistic sign. This other element is generally of a more abstract kind: the concept. (Saussure 1983, 66; Saussure 1974, 66) Saussure was focusing on the linguistic sign (such as a word) and he 'phonocentrically' privileged the spoken word, referring specifically to the image acoustique ('sound-image' or 'sound pattern'), seeing writing as a separate, secondary, dependent but comparable sign system (Saussure 1983, 15, 24-25, 117; Saussure 1974, 15, 16, 23-24, 119). Within the ('separate') system of written signs, a signifier such as the written letter 't' signified a sound in the primary sign system of language (and thus a written word would also signify a sound rather than a concept). Thus for Saussure, writing relates to speech as signifier to signified. Most subsequent theorists who have adopted Saussure's model are content to refer to the form of linguistic signs as either spoken or written. We will return later to the issue of the post-Saussurean 'rematerialization' of the sign.

! As for the signified, most commentators who adopt Saussure's model still treat this as a mental construct, although they often note that it may nevertheless refer indirectly to things in the world. Saussure's original model of the sign 'brackets the referent': excluding reference to objects existing in the world. His signified is not to be identified directly with a referent but is a concept in the mind - not a thing but the notion of a thing. Some people may wonder why Saussure's model of the sign refers only to a concept and not to a thing. An observation from the philosopher Susanne Langer (who was not referring to Saussure's theories) may be useful here. Note that like most contemporary commentators, Langer uses the term 'symbol' to refer to the linguistic sign (a term which Saussure himself avoided): 'Symbols are not proxy for their objects but are vehicles for the conception of objects... In talking about things we have conceptions of them, not the things themselves; and it is the conceptions, not the things, that symbols directly mean. Behaviour towards conceptions is what words normally evoke; this is the typical process of thinking'. She adds that 'If I say "Napoleon", you do not bow to the conqueror of Europe as though I had introduced him, but merely think of him' (Langer 1951, 61).

Thus, for Saussure the linguistic sign is wholly immaterial - although he disliked referring to it as 'abstract' (Saussure 1983, 15; Saussure 1974, 15). The immateriality of the Saussurean sign is a feature which tends to be neglected in many popular commentaries. If the notion seems strange, we need to remind ourselves that words have no value in themselves - that is their value. Saussure noted that it is not the metal in a coin that fixes its value (Saussure 1983, 117; Saussure 1974, 118). Several reasons could be offered for this. For instance, if linguistic signs drew attention to their materiality this would hinder their communicative transparency (Langer 1951, 73). Furthermore, being immaterial, language is an extraordinarily economical medium and words are always ready-to-hand. Nevertheless, a principled argument can be made for the revaluation of the materiality of the sign, as we shall see in due course.

Saussure noted that his choice of the terms signifier and signified helped to indicate 'the distinction which separates each from the other' (Saussure 1983, 67; Saussure 1974, 67). Despite this, and the horizontal bar in his diagram of the sign, Saussure stressed that sound and thought (or the signifier and the signified) were as inseparable as the two sides of a piece of paper (Saussure 1983, 111; Saussure 1974, 113). They were 'intimately linked' in the mind 'by an associative link' - 'each triggers the other' (Saussure 1983, 66; Saussure 1974, 66). Saussure presented these elements as wholly interdependent, neither pre-existing the other (Silverman 1983, 103). Within the context of spoken language, a sign could not consist of sound without sense or of sense without sound. He used the two arrows in the diagram to suggest their interaction. The bar and the opposition nevertheless suggests that the signifier and the signified can be distinguished for analytical purposes. Poststructuralist theorists criticize the clear distinction which the Saussurean bar seems to suggest between the signifier and the signified; they seek to blur or erase it in order to reconfigure the sign or structural relations. Some theorists have argued that 'the signifier is always separated from the signified... and has a real autonomy' (Lechte 1994, 68), a point to which we will return in discussing the arbitrariness of the sign. Commonsense tends to insist that the signified takes precedence over, and pre-exists, the signifier: 'look after the sense', quipped Lewis Carroll, 'and the sounds will take care of themselves' (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chapter 9). However, in dramatic contrast, post-Saussurean theorists have seen the model as implicitly granting primacy to the signifier, thus reversing the commonsensical position.

Louis Hjelmslev used the terms 'expression' and 'content' to refer to the signifier and signified respectively (Hjelmslev 1961, 47ff). The distinction between signifier and signified has sometimes been equated to the familiar dualism of 'form and content'. Within such a framework the signifier is seen as the form of the sign and the signified as the content. However, the metaphor of form as a 'container' is problematic, tending to support the equation of content with meaning, implying that meaning can be 'extracted' without an active process of interpretation and that form is not in itself meaningful (Chandler 1995 104-6).

Saussure argued that signs only make sense as part of a formal, generalized and abstract system. His conception of meaning was purely structural and relational rather than referential: primacy is given to relationships rather than to things (the meaning of signs was seen as lying in their systematic relation to each other rather than deriving from any inherent features of signifiers or any reference to material things). Saussure did not define signs in terms of some 'essential' or intrinsic nature. For Saussure, signs refer primarily to each other. Within the language system, 'everything depends on relations' (Saussure 1983, 121; Saussure 1974, 122). No sign makes sense on its own but only in relation to other signs. Both signifier and signified are purely relational entities (Saussure 1983, 118; Saussure 1974, 120). This notion can be hard to understand since we may feel that an individual word such as 'tree' does have some meaning for us, but its meaning depends on its context in relation to the other words with which it is used.

Together with the 'vertical' alignment of signifier and signified within each individual sign (suggesting two structural 'levels'), the emphasis on the relationship between signs defines what are in effect two planes - that of the signifier and the signifier. Later, Louis Hjelmslev referred to the planes of 'expression' and 'content' (Hjelmslev 1961, 60). Saussure himself referred to sound and thought as two distinct but correlated planes. 'We can envisage... the language... as a series of adjoining subdivisions simultaneously imprinted both on the plane of vague, amorphous thought (A), and on the equally featureless plane of sound (B)' (Saussure 1983, 110-111; Saussure 1974, 112). The arbitrary division of the two continua into signs is suggested by the dotted lines whilst the wavy (rather than parallel) edges of the two 'amorphous' masses suggest the lack of any 'natural' fit between them. The gulf and lack of fit between the two planes highlights their relative autonomy. Whilst Saussure is careful not to refer directly to 'reality', Fredric Jameson reads into this feature of Saussure's system that 'it is not so much the individual word or sentence that "stands for" or "reflects" the individual object or event in the real world, but rather that the entire system of signs, the entire field of the langue, lies parallel to reality itself; that it is the totality of systematic language, in other words, which is analogous to whatever organized structures exist in the world of reality, and that our understanding proceeds from one whole or Gestalt to the other, rather than on a one-to-one basis' (Jameson 1972, 32-33).

What Saussure refers to as the 'value' of a sign depends on its relations with other signs within the system - a sign has no 'absolute' value independent of this context (Saussure 1983, 80; Saussure 1974, 80). Saussure uses an analogy with the game of chess, noting that the value of each piece depends on its position on the chessboard (Saussure 1983, 88; Saussure 1974, 88). The sign is more than the sum of its parts. Whilst signification - what is signified - clearly depends on the relationship between the two parts of the sign, the value of a sign is determined by the relationships between the sign and other signs within the system as a whole (Saussure 1983, 112-113; Saussure 1974, 114).

The notion of value... shows us that it is a great mistake to consider a sign as nothing more than the combination of a certain sound and a certain concept. To think of a sign as nothing more would be to isolate it from the system to which it belongs. It would be to suppose that a start could be made with individual signs, and a system constructed by putting them together. On the contrary, the system as a united whole is the starting point, from which it becomes possible, by a process of analysis, to identify its constituent elements. (Saussure 1983, 112; Saussure 1974, 113)


As an example of the distinction between signification and value, Saussure notes that 'The French word mouton may have the same meaning as the English word sheep; but it does not have the same value. There are various reasons for this, but in particular the fact that the English word for the meat of this animal, as prepared and served for a meal, is not sheep but mutton. The difference in value between sheep and mouton hinges on the fact that in English there is also another word mutton for the meat, whereas mouton in French covers both' (Saussure 1983, 114; Saussure 1974, 115-116).

Saussure's relational conception of meaning was specifically differential: he emphasized the differences between signs. Language for him was a system of functional differences and oppositions. 'In a language, as in every other semiological system, what distinguishes a sign is what constitutes it' (Saussure 1983, 119; Saussure 1974, 121). As John Sturrock points out, 'a one-term language is an impossibility because its single term could be applied to everything and differentiate nothing; it requires at least one other term to give it definition' (Sturrock 1979, 10). Advertising furnishes a good example of this notion, since what matters in 'positioning' a product is not the relationship of advertising signifiers to real-world referents, but the differentiation of each sign from the others to which it is related. Saussure's concept of the relational identity of signs is at the heart of structuralist theory. Structuralist analysis focuses on the structural relations which are functional in the signifying system at a particular moment in history. 'Relations are important for what they can explain: meaningful contrasts and permitted or forbidden combinations' (Culler 1975, 14).

Saussure emphasized in particular negative, oppositional differences between signs, and the key relationships in structuralist analysis are binary oppositions (such as nature/culture, life/death). Saussure argued that 'concepts... are defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system. What characterizes each most exactly is being whatever the others are not' (Saussure 1983, 115; Saussure 1974, 117; my emphasis). This notion may initially seem mystifying if not perverse, but the concept of negative differentiation becomes clearer if we consider how we might teach someone who did not share our language what we mean by the term 'red'. We would be unlikely to make our point by simply showing them a range of different objects which all happened to be red - we would be probably do better to single out a red object from a sets of objects which were identical in all respects except colour. Although Saussure focuses on speech, he also noted that in writing, 'the values of the letter are purely negative and differential' - all we need to be able to do is to distinguish one letter from another (Saussure 1983, 118; Saussure 1974, 119-120). As for his emphasis on negative differences, Saussure remarks that although both the signified and the signifier are purely differential and negative when considered separately, the sign in which they are combined is a positive term. He adds that 'the moment we compare one sign with another as positive combinations, the term difference should be dropped... Two signs... are not different from each other, but only distinct. They are simply in opposition to each other. The entire mechanism of language... is based on oppositions of this kind and upon the phonic and conceptual differences they involve' (Saussure 1983, 119; Saussure 1974, 120-121).

Although the signifier is treated by its users as 'standing for' the signified, Saussurean semioticians emphasize that there is no necessary, intrinsic, direct or inevitable relationship between the signifier and the signified. Saussure stressed the arbitrariness of the sign (Saussure 1983, 67, 78; Saussure 1974, 67, 78) - more specifically the arbitrariness of the link between the signifier and the signified (Saussure 1983, 67; Saussure 1974, 67). He was focusing on linguistic signs, seeing language as the most important sign system; for Saussure, the arbitrary nature of the sign was the first principle of language (Saussure 1983, 67; Saussure 1974, 67) - arbitrariness was identified later by Charles Hockett as a key 'design feature' of language (Hockett 1958; Hockett 1960; Hockett 1965). The feature of arbitrariness may indeed help to account for the extraordinary versatility of language (Lyons 1977, 71). In the context of natural language, Saussure stressed that there is no inherent, essential, 'transparent', self-evident or 'natural' connection between the signifier and the signified - between the sound or shape of a word and the concept to which it refers (Saussure 1983, 67, 68-69, 76, 111, 117; Saussure 1974, 67, 69, 76, 113, 119). Note that Saussure himself avoids directly relating the principle of arbitrariness to the relationship between language and an external world, but that subsequent commentators often do, and indeed, lurking behind the purely conceptual 'signified' one can often detect Saussure's allusion to real-world referents (Coward & Ellis 1977, 22). In language at least, the form of the signifier is not determined by what it signifies: there is nothing 'treeish' about the word 'tree'. Languages differ, of course, in how they refer to the same referent. No specific signifier is 'naturally' more suited to a signified than any other signifier; in principle any signifier could represent any signified. Saussure observed that 'there is nothing at all to prevent the association of any idea whatsoever with any sequence of sounds whatsoever' (Saussure 1983, 76; Saussure 1974, 76); 'the process which selects one particular sound-sequence to correspond to one particular idea is completely arbitrary' (Saussure 1983, 111; Saussure 1974, 113).

This principle of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign was not an original conception: Aristotle had noted that 'there can be no natural connection between the sound of any language and the things signified' (cited in Richards 1932, 32). In Plato's Cratylus Hermogenes urged Socrates to accept that 'whatever name you give to a thing is its right name; and if you give up that name and change it for another, the later name is no less correct than the earlier, just as we change the name of our servants; for I think no name belongs to a particular thing by nature' (cited in Harris 1987, 67). 'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet', as Shakespeare put it. Whilst the notion of the arbitrariness of language was not new, but the emphasis which Saussure gave it can be seen as an original contribution, particularly in the context of a theory which bracketed the referent. Note that although Saussure prioritized speech, he also stressed that 'the signs used in writing are arbitrary, The letter t, for instance, has no connection with the sound it denotes' (Saussure 1983, 117; Saussure 1974, 119).