Basics of Semiotics

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Basics of Semiotics

• Ole Togeby
• Scandinavian Institute
• Aarhus University

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Semiotics

• also called  Semiology,  the study of signs and
  sign-using behaviour. It was defined by one of
  its founders, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de
  Saussure, as the study of the life of signs
  within society. Although the word was used in
  this sense in the 17th century by the English
  philosopher John Locke, the idea of semiotics as
  an interdisciplinary mode for examining phenomena
  in different fields emerged only in the late 19th
  and early 20th centuries with the independent
  work of Saussure and of the American philosopher
  Charles Sanders Peirce.

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I. Sign definitions
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Structuralist concept of sign
Expression form Expression substance Content Su
bstance Content form
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Peirces definition of a sign

• "A sign is something which stands to somebody for
  something in some respect or capacity. It
  addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind
  of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a
  more developed sign. That sign which it creates I
  call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign
  stands for something, its object.
• A sign stands for its object, not in all
  respects, but in reference to a sort of idea,
  which I have sometimes called the ground of the
  sign.

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Peirce on signs

• A Sign is a Cognizable that, on the one hand, is
  so determined (i.e., specialized, bestimmt) by
  something other than itself, called its Object
  ..., while, on the other hand, it so determines
  some actual or potential Mind, the determination
  whereof I term the Interpretant created by the
  Sign, that that Interpreting Mind is therein
  determined mediately by the Object." (A Letter to
  William James, EP 2492, 1909)

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Objects determine their signs

• Just as Peirce thought signs could be classified
  according to whether their sign-vehicles function
  in virtue of qualities, existential facts, or
  conventions and laws, he thought signs were
  similarly classifiable according to how their
  object functioned in signification. Recall that,
  for Peirce, objects "determine" their signs. That
  is to say, the nature of the object constrains
  the nature of the sign in terms of what
  successful signification requires.

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Icon, index and symbol

• Peirce's categorization of signs into three main
  types
• (1) an icon, which resembles its referent (such
  as a road sign for falling rocks)
• (2) an index, which is associated with its
  referent (as smoke is a sign of fire) and
• (3) a symbol, which is related to its referent
  only by convention (as with words or traffic
  signals).
• Peirce also demonstrated that a sign can never
  have a definite meaning, for the meaning must be
  continuously qualified.

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Qualitative, physical and conventional

• Again, Peirce thought the nature of these
  constraints fell into three broad classes
• qualitative,
• existential or physical,
• conventional and law-like.
• If the constraints of successful signification
  require that the sign reflect qualitative
  features of the object, then the sign is an icon.
  
• If the constraints of successful signification
  require that the sign utilize some existential or
  physical connection between it and its object,
  then the sign is an index.
• If successful signification of the object
  requires that the sign utilize some convention,
  habit, or social rule or law that connects it
  with its object, then the sign is a symbol.

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Representamen, interpretant, object, ground

• "A sign, or representamen, is something which
  stands to somebody for something in some respect
  or capacity.
• It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the
  mind of that person an equivalent sign, or
  perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it
  creates I call the interpretant of the first
  sign.
• The sign stands for something, its object.
• It stands for that object, not in all respects,
  but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have
  sometimes called the ground of the representamen.
  "Idea" is here to be understood in a sort of
  Platonic sense, very familiar in everyday talk I
  mean in that sense in which we say that one man
  catches another man's idea, in which we say that
  when a man recalls what he was thinking of at
  some previous time, he recalls the same idea, and
  in which when a man continues to think anything,
  say for a tenth of a second, in so far as the
  thought continues to agree with itself during
  that time, that is to have a like content, it is
  the same idea, and is not at each instant of the
  interval a new idea. (A Fragment, CP 2.228, c.
  1897)

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A model of Peirces sign
indirect determination
equivalent with
Determines stands for
in that respect
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Traffic light

• Lad os tage et bedragerisk let eksempel
  trafiklyset viser rødt Det røde lys er
  repræsentamen, objektet det henviser til, er
  muligheden for at der kommer biler på tværs,
  interpretanten er det nye tegn der danner sig i
  mig, bilisten, og som lyder Jeg må hellere
  bremse - og tegnets grund er det forhold, at der
  henvises til de andre biler alene i den egenskab
  at de kunne køre på tværs nu og her, ikke til
  deres mærke, farve, ejere, stand osv.,der kunne
  være genstand for et andet tegn (Peirce 1994,
  17).
• The traffic light shows red. The red light is
  representamen, the object that it refers to, is
  the possibillity of crossing cars, the
  interpretant is the new sign which is formed in
  me, the car driver, and which says I have to
  stop and the ground of the sign is the fact
  that the other cars are only referred to with
  respect to their crossing my lane right now, not
  to their colour, owners or condition etc.
• Peirce, Ch.S. 1994 Semiotik og pragmatisme, på
  dansk ved Lars Andersen, udg. af Anne Marie
  Dinesen og Frederik Stjernfelt, København
  Samlerens Bogklub

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Trafic light 2

• Alternative explanation (OT)
• The red light (representamen) for the car driver
  stands for the thought processesI have to stop
  (interpretant) because it is necessary to stop
  (to prevents collision) (the object), grounded on
  the fact that it is placed at a crossroads (the
  ground).
• If the red light had been placed in the window of
  a brothel, it would have had the object The
  brothel is open, and if it had been placed at a
  theater, it would have meant (had the object)
  house full. It is only with respect to cars
  approaching a crossroads that the red light means
  STOP!

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Semiosis

• "It is important to understand what I mean by
  semiosis. All dynamical action, or action of
  brute force, physical or psychical, either takes
  place between two subjects (whether they react
  equally upon each other, or one is agent and the
  other patient, entirely or partially) or at any
  rate is a resultant of such actions between
  pairs. But by "semiosis" I mean, on the contrary,
  an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a
  coöperation of three subjects, such as a sign,
  its object, and its interpretant, this
  tri-relative influence not being in any way
  resolvable into actions between pairs."
  ('Pragmatism', EP 2411, 1907)

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Semiosis
It is necessary to stop
Red light
I have to stop
- determines
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Continous semiosis
stopping prevents red light
I have the car
other cars collision
to stop
stops crossing
External sign for the other
external internal Sign
sign
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II. An alternative view

• Definition
• A sign is an external representation of something.

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Communication defined

• 1. Linguistic communication is defined as an
  event in time in which the individual, manifest,
  linguistic acts of one person count as common
  latent thoughts of all the participants in a
  focussed gathering in a speech community. The act
  is individual, manifest and divisible, the the
  thoughts are common, latent and indivisible
• The rules of language are rules for the
  count-as-relation between act (form) and thought
  (meaning) on a background.
• How can actions in a sequence count as
  approximately the same thoughts for all the
  participants? That is the topic of linguistic
  investigation.

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Dretskes definition of representation

• A representation is something that for someone
  indicates something other than it self, something
  which it is designed to indicate. Dretske 1995
  side 2-3.
• Representations can be
• external representations, which are produced
  signs
• intenal representations, which are not manifest,
  but latent mental models
• but in both cases designed, signs by a designer,
  thoughts by evolution.
• Mental representations can be devided into
• perceptual representations PR
• cognitive representation CR
• A sign is an external representation of something

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External representations signs

• External representations signs
• are characterized by (what is sometimes called
  intentionality)
• salience
• attention
• meaning
• collectivity

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Salience
No salience no sign
salient marks signs
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Attention

• Communication is defined as an event in time in
  which the individual, manifest acts of one person
  (or traces thereof) count as common latent
  thoughts of all the participants in a focussed
  gathering in a community. The form (manifest act)
  is individual, manifest and divisible, the
  meaning (the thoughts) is common, latent and
  indivisible.
• Communication only takes place when the manifest
  acts are perceived by the audience in a focussed
  gathering, i.e. all parties focus on the same
  element in the situation, both auditory and
  visually.

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Meaning

• Meaning is the thoughts that sign acts give rise
  to, and which can be misleading because they are
  regulated by common rules.
• Meaning of signs is latent, individual, but the
  same in two or more minds, indivisible, and
  directed towards something other than it self.
  Meaning is the essential part of what is called
  intentionality.

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Collectivity

• In my view all these efforts to reduce collective
  intentionality to individual intentionality fail.
  Collective intentionality is a biological
  primitive phenomenon that cannot be reduced to or
  eliminated in favor of something else. Every
  attempt at reducing We intentionality to I
  intentionality that I have seen is subject to
  counterexamples.
• John R. Searle (1995) 1996 The Construction of
  Social Reality, London Penguin Books p. 24.

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Collectivity

• Abstract We propose that the crucial difference
  between human cognition and that of other species
  is the ability to participate with others in
  collaborative activities with shared goals and
  intentions shared intentionality. Participation
  in such activities requires not only especially
  powerful forms of intention reading and cultural
  learning, but also a unique motivation to share
  psychological states with others and unique forms
  of representation for doing so. The result of
  participating in these activities is
  species-unique forms of cultural cognition and
  evolution, enabling everything from the creation
  and use of linguistic symbols to the construction
  of social norms and individual beliefs to the
  establishment of social institutions.
• Michal Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter, Josep nCall,
  Tanya Behne, and Henrike Moll Understanding and
  sharing intentions The origin of cultural
  cognition in Bahavioral and Brain Sciences
  (2005) 28, 675-735.

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Peirces indexes are not signs

• If a sign are defined as an external
  representation, Peirces inxes are not signs, but
  only causal events interpreted by an observer.
  Signs have to stand for approximately the same
  each time, and for each observer.
• The index a column of smoke can one day mean
  fire, the next the direction of the wind, the
  next again Now it is time for dinner.
• That is not a sign, but just indvidual thought
  processes.
• But a weathercock is a sign, because it is
  designed to represent the wind direction.

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Divisibility of the external sign

• The external sign can always be divided into
  parts either in time (verbal texts), or in space
  (pictures).
• The interpretation, the internal representation,
  is always one indivisible Gestalt.

Forsiden på Klaus Rifbjerg 1963 Portræt
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Divisibility of the linguistic act

• 2. The form is divisible
• The linguistic form (the individual manifest
  actions) is as all physical processes divisible
• A - Do you come now? We shall eat.
• B - Im trying to!

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Indivisibility of consciousness

• 3. Consciousness is indivisible
• The meaning (the common thoughts in the
  individual minds) is indivisible. Thoughts make
  up one unit, both across sense modalities and
  time. Sense impressions from all the senses
  visual, auditive, olfactory and tactile
  impressions form together one united
  consciousness, a so called Gestalt of the actual
  situation. One of the features of consciousness
  is the feeling of being a self, the same self
  from the earliest days one can remember to the
  present day.
• Thoughts are always experienced as a figure on a
  ground which is seen in this example of Rubins
  vase (Gade 1997, 178) you can see two black
  profiles facing each other on a white background,
  or you can see a white vase on a black
  background you can skip in the twinkling of an
  eye from one to the other, but you cannot se both
  of them at the same time.

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Figure and ground

• What comes from reality to the mind as a
  category, and what remains background when a
  human being perceives a situation? In reality
  there are countless differences which
  differences form the borderline between figure
  and ground, and which differences do not? With a
  concise formulation only the differences that
  make a difference come from the landscape to the
  map (Bateson 1970) ) that means the
  differences associated with interests, needs and
  desires of a living organism. In their
  consciousness human beings organize the single
  parts of their impressions according to their
  function in the whole, the figure of which is
  associated with their needs and desires. You see
  the duck if you are going to feed ducks, and the
  rabbit if you trade in fur.

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To see something as something

• On this picture from Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein
  1958 , II - XI ) you see the figure either as a
  duck looking to the left, or as a rabbit looking
  to the right, you can skip between them, but you
  cannot see them both at the same time. Physically
  it is nothing but printing ink on a piece of
  paper it is only in my mind, and in your mind
  that the drawn line is recognised as a rabbit or
  a duck. The same hold for real ducks and rabbits.
  In the real world they are individuals, only in
  the mind of someone (a human being or some other
  animal) they belong the categories of ducks and
  rabbits. By the category or concept we synthesize
  all the sense impressions into one mental unit.
  Some categories synthesize parts or traits
  separated in time, categories like situation,
  event and life.

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A taxonomy of signs
External phenomena
(indexes)
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Elements in the picture sign situation
Portræt malet 1719 af Balthasar Denner. Det
hænger nu på Frederiksborgmuseet. Maleriet er
siden 1882 reproduceret på tændstiksæskerne fra
H.E.Gosh Co.
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Pictures and verbal texts

• Pictures are interpreted as sign units.
• (1) Pictures are interpreted functionally, i.e.
  top down.
• (2) Pictures are designed to have resemblance
  with their object
• (3) Pictures are sense specific (vision).
• (4) Pictures are expositions in space.
• (5) Pictures have semantic likeness with their
  object.

• Texts are interpreted as articulated signs.
• (1) Texts are interpreted both compositionally,
  i.e. bottom up, and functionally, i.e. top down.
• (2) Texts are conventionally different from
  their objects
• (3) Texts are not sense specific, but conceptual.
  
• (4) Texts are statements about time.
• (5) Texts have syntactic truth value in relation
  to their object.

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FunctionalityTop down interpretation

• Here are two strokes

But as part of a whole it is two eyes
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FunctionalityTop down interpretation

• And if the whole changes, the eyes changes from
  beeing glad to being sour.

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Compositionality and functionality

• Meningen med teksten PAS PÅ BØRN er bestemt
  ved kompositionalitet (summen af meningen med
  delene og måden de er kombineret på) passe på
  means be carefull with eller be on one's
  guard against, bydeformen betyder at det er
  noget duet skal gøre, og barn betyder person
  under 13 år. Sætningen kan derfor betyde vær
  vagtsom over for personer under 13.

Meningen med teksten er også bestemt ved
funktionalitet når det er et vejskilt, er
betydningen af pas på nok snarere vær
forsigtig, og børn er nok snarere en
nominalsætning end et objekt, og betyder der
leger måske børn på vejen.
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Types of signs
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Linguistic meaning

• 4. Linguistic meaning is shared meaning
• Like other forms of consciousness linguistic
  meaning is indivisible, organized with a figure
  on a ground, a figure under aspectual shape. But
  while consciousness normally is a gestalt which
  represents the things and events in the world
  that cause the sense impressions, linguistic
  meaning is representating something totally
  different from the events in the world that cause
  the impressions.
• The fundamental fact about language is that it
  is a means by which people share their thoughts
  with each other. (The word transfer is not the
  proper word in this connection when I transfer
  money to you, Ill not have the money any more,
  but when I share my thoughts with you, Ill still
  have my thoughts, even after you have understood
  them.) To learn language is to learn how to mean.
  So language is also a means to mean, a medium for
  thoughts.

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• The situation of communication (Sc) causes
  (physically and biologically) (notation ' ?) a
  thought in the mind of the interlocutors they
  perceive the situation and take the utterance of
  the speaker (U) as the figure against the
  background of the participants, and the whole
  setting. This utterance act counts as (notation
  gt) a thought (T) directed towards
  (intentionally referring to and designating)
  (notation ?) the situation referred to (Sr),
  because it has the linguistic community and the
  situation of communication as common background
  (notation ' ... B ). It can be stated in one
  formula (Togeby 2003, 10)
• Sc ? U gt (T ? Sr )B.

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Sc ? U gt (T ? Sr )B.

• Sc ? U gt (T ? Sr )B.
• The relation of intentional reference and
  designation has a notation (?), which is the
  mirror image of notation of causation (?) because
  the thought that the utterance counts as, has as
  its referent an event that could have caused the
  same thought by sense impressions. When the witch
  tells the soldier about the dog on the chest he
  gets the same image in his head, as he gets when
  he later in fact climbs down in the tree, opens
  the door and stands face to face with the dog. It
  is what Searle calls causal reflexivity (Searle
  1983).

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The logical layers of communication

• An utterance functions in many levels
  simultaneously, a theory originally formulated by
  Austin in his book How To Do Things With Words
  (1975). The fact that the witch convinces the
  soldier that he can get rid of the dog by setting
  it on her apron although it is big, is called the
  perlocutionary act. The fact that her utterance
  counts as a prediction about the future as part
  of an instruction, and not as a fairy tale about
  monsters in the underground, is called the
  illocutionary act. The fact that she is able to
  get him understand and imagine the propositional
  content of the true sentence, viz. that down in
  the tree in the possible future he will see that
  big dog sitting on the chest in the first room,
  is called the rhetic act, and her designating a
  'chest and a 'dog, and her predicating that the
  latter sits on the former, is called the phatic
  act. The rhetic and phatic acts are possible only
  because she performs the phonetic acts of
  pronouncing sounds that are identified as
  linguistic phonemes.

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The logical layers of communication

• On all five levels we see this mechanism that a
  physical token counts as a timeless type a phone
  counts as a phoneme, a morph counts as a
  morpheme, a sentence counts as a proposition, a
  set of connected sentences counts as a text or a
  speech act, and speech acts count as moves in a
  social interaction.
• Normally phonology is not part of sentence
  grammar. In functional grammar the sentence is
  thus described as having four different functions
  or types of meaning the conceptual meaning on
  the phatic level, the propositional meaning on
  the rhetic level, the textual function on the
  illocutionary level, and the interactional
  function on the perlocutionary level.

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The logical layers of communication
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Types of meaning

• In the mind of the communicators the conceptual
  meaning is the figure against the background of
  propositional meaning the propositional meaning
  has the textual (informational) message as its
  background, and the message has the interaction
  as its setting. So the meaning of a text uttered
  in a situation is like a Chinese nest of boxes
  with one type of meaning as the figure against
  the background of the next type of meaning

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Types of meaning
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Types of meaning

• In the mind of the communicators the conceptual
  meaning is the figure against the background of
  propositional meaning the propositional meaning
  has the textual (informational) message as its
  background, and the message has the interaction
  as its setting. So the meaning of a text uttered
  in a situation is like a Chinese nest of boxes
  with one type of meaning as the figure against
  the background of the next type of meaning

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• 7. The count-as mechanism
• The count-as mechanism ( U gt TB makes raw,
  individual physical behaviour into intentional
  common thought (i.e. directed towards the same
  situation talked about). Intentional phenomena,
  such as beliefs and desires, are representations
  of something external to the mind in which they
  occur, representations that are common for many
  minds in the sense that they refer to the same
  things outside the minds, provided that the
  bearers of the minds belong to the same speech
  community. So the count-as mechanism (Searle
  1995) only works against the background of a
  situation of joint activities and a speech
  community (shaded areas)

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Count as-mechanism
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Count as-mechanism
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Types of meaning
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Inferential text interpretation

• Regular text interpretation is a process of
  building a mental model of the situation talked
  about in the text and relate it to the model of
  the current situation.
• The mental model is build by the hearers by
• 1) determining what is said from what is
  pronounced,
• and is related to the current situation by
• 2) determining what is communicated by what is
  said

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Inferential text interpretation

• If we take the oral situation as basic, we can
  thus distinguish between
• 1) what is pronounced (known as what is explicit)
  in uttering a text,
• 2) what is said by what is pronounced (called the
  explicature or the coded meaning), and
• 3) what is implicitly communicated by what is
  said (both presupposition and implicature).

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Theoretical framework A model of the
interpretation process

• What is communicated
• to infere what
  is implicated
• to integrate
  what is presupposed
• What is said what is said
• to acknowledge the logical proposition
• to construe the
  conceptual configuration
• to disambiguate lexical items
• to recognize the references
• What is pronouncedwhat is
  pronouncedwhat is pronounced

Inferential Accessible Optional
Unconscous Involuntary obligatory
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Theoretical framework A model of interpretation
process

• What is communicated
• to infere what
  is implicated
• to integrate
  what is presupposed
• What is said what is said
• to acknowledge the logical proposition
• to construe the
  conceptual configuration
• to disambiguate lexical items
• to recognize the references
• What is pronouncedwhat is
  pronouncedwhat is pronounced

pragmatics semantics
Syntax Semantics Semantics Semantics
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Inferential text interpretation

• On another dimension we can distinguish between
• a) information that the speaker indicates as
  something that should be taking for granted,
• b) information that the speaker states as new in
  order to make the audience take it in
• It gives six type of information
• names, predicates, what is named (the reference),
  what is predicated, what is presupposed and the
  implicature.

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Types of information
Information Taken for granted Stated
What is pronounced Names (definite noun phrases) Predicates (verb phrases, adjectives, adverbials)
What is said in the proposition What is named (the re-cognizable reference in the mental model) What is predicated as relevant to the audience
What is communicated What is presupposed by the utterance of the proposition The implicature of the speakers claim of relevance of the predicated information
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References

• Aristoteles (350 BC) Poetics
• Borchmann, Simon, 2005 Funktionel tekstteori og
  fiktivt fortællende tekster med refleksiv
  funktion, København
• Bergler, Edmond 1956 Laughter and the Sense of
  Humor, New York
• Carston, Robyn 2002 Thoughts and Utterances. The
  Pragmatics of Explicit Communication, Oxford
  Blackwell Publishing.
• Freud, Sigmund (1906) 1979 Der Witz und seine
  Beziehung zum Unbewussten, Frankfurt am Main
• Grice, H.P. (1967) 1975 Logic and conversation
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  and Semantics, vol 3, Speech Acts, New York
  Academic Press
• Peter Harder Christian Kock 1976 The Theory of
  Presupposition Failure, København Akademisk
  Forlag
• Kant, Immanuel (1781) 1996 Kritik der reinen
  Vernunft, Frankfurt am Main
• Koestler, Arthur 1964 The Act of Creation,
  London
• Togeby, Ole 2003 Fungerer denne sætning?
  Funktionel dansk sproglære, København
• Zijderveld, A. 1976 Humor und Gesellschaft. Eine
  Soziologie des Humors und des Lachens, Graz
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1969 On Certainty, London
• Yule, George 1996 Pragmatics, Oxford